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The Silver Series of English Classics 



IN MEMORIAM 



BY 



ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 



BY 



VERNON P. SQUIRES 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, STATE UNIVERSITY OF 
NORTH DAKOTA 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 



A3 Sr 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Gooies Received 
JAN 2 190/ 
f\ Copyrieht entry 

/OLASS >\ foe., No. 

■^ CCIPY B. 



CcFYKIGHT, 1906 

BY SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 



TO 

J, B. C. 

IN MEMORY OF 

J. D. S. 



PREFACE 

This little volume is put forth with the hope that it may 
help students in our schools and colleges and readers in 
general better to understand and more fully to enjoy what 
may be regarded as the great Laureate's masterpiece. For 
many reasons "In Memoriam" is hard to understand. The 
great number of personal allusions which it contains, the 
abstruseness of much of its thought, and the terseness of 
the language employed unite to make it difficult. In addi- 
tion to this, most readers persist in regarding it as a series 
of disconnected poems when, as a matter of fact, it cannot 
be understood at all unless it is understood as a whole. The 
aim of the present edition is, therefore, to unify, to simplify, 
and to clarify. It is hoped that the division into cycles and 
sections may materially assist in unifying the poem, that 
the marginal headings will help to simplify and clarify, and 
that the notes will help in all three ways. 

No attempt has been made to weigh down the notes with 
miscellaneous learning. I have, however, endeavored to 
explain all personal allusions, and in general all words and 
references which seem likely to be unfamiliar to the ordi- 
nary reader; to untangle cases of involved grammatical 
construction; to paraphrase difficult phrases or sentences; 
to quote passages from other authors with which the poet 
apparently presupposes familiarity, or which throw light on 
the thought or phraseology ; and, above all, to make Tenny- 
son his own interpreter by quoting from his other poems or 
his reported notes and conversations passages elucidating 

5 



6 IN MEMORIAM 

or emphasizing what he says in " In Memoriam. ' ' In every 
case the notes are such as I have found practically useful in 
my own class-room. 

I have made no attempt to note all the slight verbal 
changes which the poet made in the successive editions of 
the poem. They are sixty-two in number, most of them 
insignificant, and have been many times collated. In this 
omission I feel that I am quite in accord with the wishes of 
the poet himself, of whom his son observes : ' ' He ' gave the 
people of his best,' and he usually wished that his best 
should remain without variorum readings, 'the chips of the 
work-shop,' as he called them." In only a few cases where 
the change is really significant, especially when the poet 
himself commented on it, have I departed from this rule 
and made a note of the change. 

To former editions of "In Memoriam ,, and to many 
critics on both sides of the Atlantic every new editor must 
necessarily be indebted. Especially great is the debt which 
every student of Tennyson, the world over, owes to the 
beautiful memoir of the poet by his son. It is a treasure- 
house of interesting and valuable information, and one of 
the most satisfactory biographies ever written. My obliga- 
tions to this and to various other books and magazine 
articles are duly acknowledged in the notes. 

The preparation of this little volume has been a labor of 
love. Begun nearly ten years ago, and gone over year 
after year in connection with my classes in the literature of 
the nineteenth century, it has at last assumed a form which, 
it is hoped, may help a larger circle to appreciate one of the 
most beautiful as it is one of the most thoughtful and 
inspiring poems of modern times. V. P. S. 

University, North Dakota, 
September 27, 1906. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 


9 


I Biographical 


9 


II In Memoriam: Its Significance 




and Structure 


20 


III Bibliographical 


29 


In Memoriam 


31 


Notes 


139 



INTRODUCTION 



I. Biographical 



Alfred Tennyson was the son of Rev. George Clayton 
Tennyson, M.A., LL.D., who in the early years of the 
nineteenth century was rector of the church at Somersby 
in Lincolnshire. Somersby, a quiet little hamlet, rests 
among the trees in the midst of a gently rolling country, a 
region of large wheat fields and soft pastures, of shaded, 
winding streams and tall-towered churches. Here, in the 
unpretentious but very comfortable rectory (still standing), 
the future poet was born August 6, 1809. He was fourth 
in a family of twelve, all of whom were so endowed with 
literary or artistic tastes that their home came to be de- 
scribed as "a nest of singing birds." But of them all, 
Alfred early showed the most marked ability. His brothers 
and sisters long remembered his interesting, improvised 
stories, some of which were absurdly humorous while others 
were ' ' savagely dramatic. ' ' 

The poet's first teacher was his mother, a good and beau- 
tiful woman, devoted to her home and children, of whom 
the poet gives us a picture in his poem "Isabel." He 
received his early education mainly at home but partly at 
the grammar school in the neighboring village of Louth, 
where his grandmother lived. After three years at Louth, 
where he was not happy, Alfred, with his brother Charles, 

9 



10 IN MEMOKIAM 

who was his senior by only a year, passed to the tutelage 
of their father. Dr. Tennyson was a very scholarly man, 
and he gave his boys a fine training in Latin, Greek, French, 
mathematics, and the elements of natural science. Also, by 
way of directing their reading in English, he opened his 
excellent library to them. Here they became acquainted 
with the greatest English classics, reading and enjoying 
among other books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Burke, 
Goldsmith, Addison, Swift, Defoe, and Bunyan. Alfred 
attended to his studies and did well in them, but found 
time for his favorite diversion of verse making. He 
imitated the styles of various English poets, and when he 
was about twelve wrote an epic of six thousand lines in the 
manner of Scott, full of battles and descriptions of sea and 
mountain scenery. A little later he wrote a drama in blank 
verse. His father, who had the artist's temperament, was 
rather proud of his son's precocious talents. On the con- 
trary his grandfather, a blunt, practical man, thought very 
little of them. When, on the occasion of his grandmother's 
death, Alfred wrote some verses to her memory, his grand- 
father, apparently touched by the boy's devotion, gave him 
half a guinea, saying : "Here is half a guinea for you, the 
first you ever earned by poetry, and, take my word for it, 
the last." 

Early in 1827 the two brothers (for Charles also was 
fond of versifying) arranged with a bookseller and printer 
at Louth to publish a volume of their poems. This volume 
was entitled "Poems by Two Brothers." It contained one 
hundred and two poems in many different styles. Perhaps 
that which was most significant and interesting about the 
book was the brief Latin motto on the title-page, "Haec 
nos novimus esse nihil.'' Just because the boys realized 
that their poems were nothing, they could go on and im- 



IN MEMORIAM 11 

prove. In the high ideals of these young poets we see the 
promise of their later excellence. For their modest little 
volume the boys received fifty dollar's worth of books and 
fifty dollars in cash. On the day of publication they cele- 
brated the event by hiring a carriage and driving off to the 
seashore at Mabelthorpe, a favorite resort with them, where 
they "shared their triumph with the wind and waves." 
One, at least, of the literary journals of the day gave the 
book a favorable review ; but looking back on his work in 
after years, Alfred spoke of it as "early rot." 

About a year later (Feb. 1828) the two boys entered 
Trinity College, Cambridge, where their older brother 
Frederick had already distinguished himself. Alfred at 
this time was a handsome fellow, six feet tall, athletic and 
graceful, with thick, wavy, dark hair, and the eyes of a 
poet. Fanny Kemble, who through her brother John saw 
something of the life of the University, said of him when at 
college, "Alfred Tennyson was our hero, the great hero 
of our day." Notwithstanding a certain shyness and re- 
serve, not unnatural in boys who had scarcely ever been 
away from home, and in spite of the fact that they did not 
room in the college dormitories, they soon made many 
friends, and became a part of a coterie as brilliant as any 
ever gathered within the venerable walls of Cambridge. 
With their friends they formed a little society called "The 
Apostles," which met frequently for debates on literary 
and social questions. The spirit of progress and reform 
was in the air and to this spirit the entire band was eagerly 
devoted. Among the members of this group were Spedding 
(later the biographer of Bacon), Milnes (afterwards Lord 
Houghton), Trench (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin), 
Alford (afterwards Dean of Canterbury), Blakesley (after- 
wards Dean of Lincoln), Merivale (afterwards Dean of 



12 



IN MEMORIAM 



Ely), W. F. Brookfield, and J. M. Kemble. To these latter 
two Tennyson later wrote poems. 

But the "Apostle" to whom Alfred became most warmly 
attached was Arthur H. Hallam, the son of Henry Hallam, 
the distinguished historian. Arthur had prepared for the 
University at Eton, the most famous of English fitting 
schools, and entered Trinity at the age of seventeen, a few 
months after Alfred (Oct. 1828). In many ways Arthur 
Hallam was a remarkable young man. Brilliant, studious, 
and thoughtful, yet cheerful, companionable, and utterly 
unselfish, he combined the traits of character which give 
both strength and charm to manhood. Moreover, his per- 
sonal magnetism was great and fascinated all who came in 
contact with him. Of the many tributes to his memory, 
that which Mr. Gladstone paid him is perhaps the highest. 
In his old age the great statesman who had known Arthur 
Hallam at Eton could look back over fourscore years and 
say:* 

"Far back in the distance of my early life and upon a 
surface not yet ruffled by contention, there lies the memory 
of a friendship surpassing every other that has been enjoyed 
by one greatly blessed both in the number and in the ex- 
cellence of his friends. It is the simple truth that Arthur 
Henry Hallam was a spirit so exceptional that everything 
with which he was brought into relation during his short- 
ened passage through this world came to be, through this 
contact, glorified by a touch of the ideal. Among his con- 
temporaries at Eton, that queen of visible homes for the 
ideal school boy, he stood supreme among all his fellows; 
and the long life through which I have since wound my 
way, and which has brought me into contact with so many 

*See The Youth's Companion 'for Jan. 6, 1898. 



IN MEMORIAM 13 

men of rich endowments, leaves him where he then stood, 
as to natural gifts, so far as my estimation is concerned.' ' 

A tribute such as this is worthy of a place with that other 
more famous one which Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, an old 
man like Gladstone, paid to his boyhood friend, when he 
requested that on his tomb should be recorded what he 
deemed the greatest honor of his long and brilliant career, 
that he had been "the friend of Sir Philip Sidney. " 

Between Arthur Hallam and Alfred Tennyson there 
grew up during their college days a strong and beautiful 
friendship. Together they studied and read; and as they 
boated on the Cam, or strolled in Trinity gardens or about 
the neighboring country, they talked of their plans for the 
future, and discussed questions of literature, science, and 
social reform. In 1829 both wrote poems on "Timbuctoo ,, 
in competition for the Vice-Chancellor's medal. Much to 
Hallam 's delight, the prize went to his friend, and he 
wrote enthusiastically to Gladstone that he considered 
Tennyson as bidding fair to become the greatest poet of 
their generation, perhaps of the century. Alfred, mean- 
time, was just as certain of the coming eminence of his 
friend in literature and statesmanship. They planned to 
publish together a volume of poems. Arthur's father, how- 
ever, did not approve the plan, and Alfred's poems ap- 
peared alone. These were the verses of the 1830 volume, 
entitled, "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical." Arthur, who was 
deeply interested in the success of the book, wrote a review 
of it in the Englishman's Magazine for August, 1831. This 
review was laudatory, but at the same time judicious and 
keenly analytical. It still ranks as one of the most accurate 
and discriminating bits of Tennysonian criticism ever 
written. 

Meantime, in the summer of 1830, the two boys went on a 



14 IN MEMORIAM 

vacation pilgrimage through France into the Pyrenees, 
having in mind a romantic desire to give aid to the Spanish 
insurgents who were rebelling against the Inquisition 
and the tyranny of King Ferdinand. After many in- 
teresting experiences, they returned and resumed once 
more their University work. Alfred's college days, 
however, were numbered. In February, 1831, he was sum- 
moned home by the illness of his father. The illness proved 
fatal, and Alfred, believing it to be his duty to assume the 
care of the family's affairs, did not return to his studies. 
Hallam continued at Trinity and took his degree in the 
following January. Shortly after, while living with his 
father at 67 Wimpole Street, he began the study of law 
at the Inner Temple, London. 

In spite of their separation, the two friends continued to 
see much of each other. Alfred went down to London and 
spent many happy hours with Arthur in his "den" at the 
top of the house in the "long unlovely street." Even more 
frequently did Arthur go to Somersby. Thither he was 
drawn not only by friendship but by love ; for by this time 
he had become engaged to Emily Tennyson, the poet's sec- 
ond sister. In the summer the friends took another trip 
on the continent, and made a tour of the Rhine. Together 
they planned Alfred's next volume of poems, which was 
published late in 1832. This volume showed work of a 
more original character than any of his previous publica- 
tions and included several poems which are still classed 
among Tennyson's masterpieces, such as "The Palace of 
Art," "A Dream of Fair Women," "CEnone," "The 
Lotus Eaters," and "The Lady of Shalott." A volume of 
this character could not fail to attract attention. It was 
read by the progressive young men at the University with 
the greatest enthusiasm, and at the Cambridge Union it 



IN MEMORIAM 15 

gave rise to this question for debate : ' ' Tennyson or Milton, 
which is the greater poet?" Some of the professional critics 
however, were not so appreciative. Among the reviews 
which appeared was one in the Quarterly for July, 1833, 
which ranks as one of the severest criticisms ever written. 
It was unsigned, but has always been supposed to have 
come from the sharp-pointed pen of John Gibson Lockhart, 
the "Scorpion." 

While this new volume of Alfred's poems was being thus 
approved and condemned, Arthur set out with his father 
for a pleasure trip to the Danube. He had gone as far as 
Buda-Pesth, and was on his way home when, on the fifteenth 
of September, having suffered only slightly from an attack 
of intermittent fever, he died of a sudden rush of blood to 
the head. It was found on examination that the blood- 
vessels in his brain were weak and that under no circum- 
stances could he have lived long. His remains were 
brought back to England and were buried in St. Andrew's 
church, Clevedon, in Somersetshire, near the home of his 
grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, Bart. The following 
inscription was engraved upon his tomb : 

TO 

THE MEMORY OF 

ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 

ELDEST SON OF HENRY HALLAM ESQUIRE 

AND OF JULIA MARIA HIS WIFE 

DAUGHTER OF SIR ABRAHAM ELTON BARONET 

OF CLEVEDON COURT 

WHO WAS SNATCHED AWAY BY SUDDEN DEATH 

AT VIENNA ON SEPTEMBER 15TH 1833 

IN THE 23RD YEAR OF HIS AGE 

AND NOW IN THIS OBSCURE AND SOLITARY CHURCH 

REPOSE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF 



16 IN MEMORIAM 

ONE TOO EARLY LOST FOR PUBLIC FAME 

BUT ALREADY CONSPICUOUS AMONG HIS COTEMPOR- 

ARIES FOR THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS GENIUS 

THE DEPTH OF HIS UNDERSTANDING 

THE NOBLENESS OF HIS DISPOSITION 

THE FERVOUR OF HIS PIETY 

AND THE PURITY OF HIS LIFE 

VALE DULCISSIME 

VALE DILECTISSIME DESIDERATISSIME 

REQUIESCAS IN PACE 

PATER AC MATER HIC POSTHAC REQUIESCAMUS TECUM 

USQUE AD TUBAM 

The sudden death of his friend was paralyzing to Tenny- 
son. It brought him up against the hard realities of life. 
A thousand questions as to the meaning of suffering and 
evil pressed upon him. Deprived of that counsel and 
encouragement upon which he had depended constantly, he 
was completely at a loss. The fierce onslaught of the 
Quarterly had made him suspicious of his poetical powers ; 
without the friend who believed in him, he was without 
confidence in himself. Not for almost ten years, if we except 
two or three passing publications in periodicals, did he 
again break silence. During these years, however, he was 
not idle. He read the world 's best literature, Greek, Latin, 
Italian, German, English. He studied History, Chemistry, 
Botany, Mechanics, Animal Physiology, and Theology. He 
brooded over the problems of life, individual and social, and 
proved himself to be, indeed, what Carlyle said of him, "a 
man solitary and sad, dwelling in an element of gloom, 
carrying a bit of Chaos about him which he is manufactur- 
ing into Cosmos." Moreover, during these years the poet 
composed almost incessantly, perfecting himself in the art 
of composition; he re-wrote many of his earlier pieces, re- 
fining and strengthening them, and produced others con- 



IN MEMOKIAM 17 

taining a more vital and vigorous message than he had 
heretofore uttered. When at length, after his long silence 
and period of secret thought and effort, he published in 
1842, two new volumes, he found an immediate hearing. 
At home and abroad he was hailed as the foremost English 
poet of the day. Among the poems given to the world at 
this time were "Locksley Hall," "Dora," "Morte 
d 'Arthur," "The Two Voices," "The Vision of Sin," and 
"Break, Break, Break." Five years later appeared "The 
Princess," a more ambitious work than the poet had before 
attempted. In it was discussed, in an amusing yet thought- 
ful way, a problem which was just beginning to attract 
attention in both England and America, the problem of the 
higher education of women. 

By far the greatest product, however, of these years of 
quiet meditation was as yet unrevealed. Immediately after 
Hallam's death, the poet formed the habit of jotting down 
in verse the thoughts and feelings which came to him in 
connection with the memory of his friend. As the years 
went by and his vision grew clearer he still continued the 
habit until at length he had composed one hundred and 
thirty of these "Elegies," as he had at first called them. 
At first he had not thought of publishing them. As the 
years went by, however, there grew upon him the wish to 
set up a memorial to his gifted friend. Moreover, he hoped 
to be able to help and comfort other bereaved spirits by the 
story of his own bitterness of soul, his struggle with grief 
and gloom, and his final peace and faith. Accordingly, in 
June, 1850, he published ' ' In Memoriam. ' ' 

This same month also witnessed his marriage. Twenty 
years before he had first met Miss Emily Sellwood, then a 
young girl of seventeen. Six years later he again met her 
at the marriage of her sister Louisa to his brother 



18 IN MEMORIAM 

Charles. On this second occasion he fell in love with her 
and the two soon became engaged. The poet's financial 
resources, however, were so limited that he did not feel 
able to assume the responsibility of maintaining a home of 
his own, and the engagement was broken. But in 1850 the 
prospect seemed brighter. A pension of $1,000 a year had 
been granted him by the government, and his publisher 
guaranteed to him a regular annual income from his books. 
In addition, he received $1,500 in advance for "In 
Memoriam." Accordingly he sought out his sweetheart 
once more ; the engagement was renewed ; and on June 13th 
the two lovers were at last united. Their marriage proved 
very happy. Writing of his wife in after years Tennyson 
said: "The peace of God came into my life before the 
altar when I wedded her." This year of his marriage 
(1850) is noteworthy in the poet's life for yet another 
reason. The death of AVordsworth in April had left vacant 
the poet laureateship and on the nineteenth of November 
Tennyson was appointed to the post. It is a fact of interest 
for students of "In Memoriam" that the appointment to the 
laureateship came to Tennyson largely because of Prince 
Albert's admiration for that poem. The first production 
of the new laureate in his official capacity was his impres- 
sive "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," pub- 
lished on the morning of the funeral in November, 1852. 

His next publication of note (1855) was "Maud," never 
a very popular poem, but always a favorite with the poet 
himself. Then, in 1859, appeared the first of the "Idylls 
of the King." Tennyson had, like every great English 
poet before him, long known and loved the old Arthurian 
romances. His fondness for them, then only in suggestion, 
was shown as far back as 1832, and it was even more evident 
in the volume of 1842. In 1859 it bore rich fruitage. The 



IN MEMOKIAM 19 

idea, however, grew upon him even after the publication 
of the first five idylls. The scope of the series widened as 
time went on; those which had at first been intended as 
separate poems or pictures, were united as the third, fourth, 
sixth, seventh, and eleventh parts of one great whole, and 
in the years that followed the poet gradually filled in the 
gaps. Four more "Idylls" were published in 1869; 
another, the tenth, in 1871; another, the second, in 1872; 
and a final one, the fifth, in 1885. Together, as they now 
stand, they are unquestionably the best English epic since 
Milton. 

Tennyson had now in a most conclusive way shown his 
power as a writer of various sorts of lyrics, of ballads of 
many kinds, of character pieces, of dialect verse, and of epic 
poetry. But there was one form of poetic expression which 
he had not yet tried. This was the difficult and almost 
abandoned field of the literary drama. That at the age of 
sixty-five he should attempt this entirely new line of work 
is almost a unique fact in literary history; that he met 
with a large measure of success is a signal proof of his con- 
tinued versatility and virility. The three dramas of his 
great historical trilogy, "Queen Mary" (1875), "Harold" 
(1876), and "Becket" (1884), are generally admitted to 
surpass in excellence all other poetical dramas since Shakes- 
peare's. In them are portrayed three great epochs in the 
history of England. Of the three, "Becket" is the most 
successful on the stage, while "Queen Mary" ranks first as 
a study in character painting. In addition to these three 
masterpieces, several shorter plays came from Tennyson's 
pen between 1879 and 1892. 

In the year 1883 the poet was offered a barony by Mr. 
Gladstone, then Prime Minister. He had previously re- 
fused a baronetcy, and would have preferred to remain 



20 IN MEMORIAM 

plain Alfred Tennyson to the end. Mr. Gladstone, how- 
ever, insisted that the Queen wished to honor him not only 
for his own sake but also as a representative man of letters. 
It was felt that literary ability as well as military prowess 
or business success should be recognized by the government. 
So in consideration of the Queen's desires, the poet became 
Lord Tennyson, Baron of Aldworth and Faringford. 

In 1892 several new works appeared from the venerable 
but still vigorous pen of the aged poet; but during the 
summer he visibly failed. On the evening of Oct. 6th, with 
his family about him, the moonlight coming in through the 
oriel window above his bed, his hand clasping a volume of 
Shakespeare, and his son Hallam repeating his own beau- 
tiful prayer, "God accept him! Christ receive him!" he 
died. The funeral was held at Westminster Abbey on 
Oct. 12th. Among the pall-bearers were the Duke of 
Argyll, Lord Rosebery, Lord Salisbury, Lord Kelvin, Pro- 
fessor Jowett, Mr. Lecky, Mr. Froucle, and Mr. Henry 
White, who represented Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, then 
United States Minister to England. The great Abbey was 
crowded with mourners; the services were simple and 
majestic; and the body was laid in the "Poet's Corner," 
in front of the Chaucer monument and next to the grave 
of his friend and brother poet, Robert Browning. 

II. In Memoriam : Its Significance and Structure 

A. 

"In Memoriam" is a tribute of a great poet to a dear 
friend. But it is more. It is a discussion by a great 
thinker and prophet of some of the fundamental problems 
of life. Begun, perhaps*, as a simple elegy like "Lycidas" 
or "Adonais," it gradually outgrew its original concep- 



IN MEMORIAM 21 

tion and became a poem of religious thought and personal 
experience. 

The death of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, brought 
Tennyson face to face with many questions to which hither- 
to he had given little serious attention. Reaching out for 
comfort and reassurance, he found at first only the blank- 
ness of despair and reminders of his loss. The traditional 
theories of theology and philosophy appeared to him misty 
and intangible ; he saw no help in them. 

As the years slipped by, however, light began to appear. 
Though realizing his loneliness as keenly as before, he gath- 
ered at length a sense of strength and wisdom from his 
suffering — " gains," he phrased it. As a result of his long 
and wistful brooding, the world assumed new meanings 
formerly unguessed. Hope, which had left his heart, re- 
turned. Life seemed to him grander than it had ever 
seemed before. And a peace, derived from a contemplation 
of the deepest and most vital facts in human experience, 
possessed his soul. 

The poem is intensely personal; rarely has a man so 
plainly laid bare his inmost self. It contains many purely 
personal pictures,— pictures of home life and college life, 
and of his friend's burial. Yet there are few poems more 
universal. The sense of bereavement, the despair which 
death brings in its train, the struggle for comfort and re- 
assurance,— these are experiences common to all mankind. 
Realizing this, the poet wrote not only for himself but for 
the whole race of suffering men. He once said of this 
poem: " 'I* is not always the author speaking of him- 
self, but the voice of the human race speaking thro' him." 
{Memoir, I, 305.) Hallam Tennyson tells us that his 
father sometimes called the series of "In Memoriam" "The 
Way of the Soul. ' ' (Memoir, I, 393. ) 



22 IN MEMORIAM 

While "In Memoriam" is thus both a personal and a 
universal poem, it is also peculiarly the product of the 
nineteenth century. It certainly could not have been writ- 
ten in the eighteenth century, and it may be that before the 
end of the twentieth some parts of it will seem odd and old- 
fashioned. In a unique way it expresses the ideas of the age 
that produced it, and to many thoughtful students it has 
not seemed uncritical to call it the typical poem of recent 
times. 

The age in which we live has been forced to think over 
again all the conceptions and theories inherited from the 
past. Modern science with its wonderful discoveries and 
its still more wonderful hypotheses has caused an intel- 
lectual upheaval surpassing any similar upheaval since the 
Renaissance. Many of the long-accepted commonplaces of 
philosophy and theology have fallen never to rise again. In 
consequence, numbers of earnest men have felt the tradi- 
tional foundations of belief failing them, and have found 
themselves face to face with facts and theories which 
seemed to them cruel and unintelligible. Some have clung 
in despair to the 'traditional ; some, in their impatience 
confounding essentials and non-essentials, have thrown 
aside everything that is old merely because it is old. In 
both of these courses we see extremes ; both result in doubt, 
perplexity and gloom. Here and there, however, we dis- 
cover a thinker who has taken the wise middle course, who 
has boldly faced the facts, by dissection freed the true from 
the merely traditional, and finally emerged from the strug- 
gle, strong in a new and firmer faith, buoyant with a 
brighter and wiser hope. 

Such a thinker was Alfred Tennyson. From his youth 
even to his old age he was an enthusiastic student of nat- 
ural science. He was, in fact, a typical modern man, wel- 



IN MEMORIAM 23 

coming truth with an open and receptive mind, and daring 
to look squarely at the facts of the material world. He 
fully recognized the difficulties involved in the new views 
of nature and of life. Indeed, for a time, these difficulties 
seemed to him insuperable, and he was almost overwhelmed 
by a materialistic philosophy. But from this quagmire he 
at length emerged, by his experience better prepared to 
become an intelligent and sympathetic guide. The story of 
his soul during these years of catastrophe and reconstruc- 
tion we find in "In Memoriam. ' ' 

The secret of Tennyson's ultimate triumph is found in 
the fact that he was a poet as well as a scientist. His mind 
was too great to confine itself entirely to the facts revealed 
by the microscope or telescope, the scalpel or reagent. He 
recognized that there is a world within as well as a world 
without. During all his years of hesitation, the thought 
of his friend was ever present with him. He realized that 
their mutual love was a fact as certain and as vital as any 
revealed by star or egg or fossil. He felt that to be true 
to all the facts he must not ignore this fact. Accordingly, 
he posited Love as a necessary datum in his philosophy of 
life, and to this conclusion he clung, 

* ' Tho ' Nature, red in tooth and claw 
With ravin, shrieked against his creed." 

Moreover, he was thoroughly convinced that mere knowl- 
edge, however obtained, is not of itself capable of solving 
all the mysteries of life. He decided that it has to do only 
with "things we see," that it is "earthly, of the mind.' , 
And the mind, he asserted, is not the only tribunal. 
Upon this point his friend Arthur Hallam had written: 
1 ' The great error of the Deistical mode of arguing is the as- 
sumption that intellect is something more pure and akin to 



24 



IN MEMOEIAM 



Divinity than emotion." With his friend's statement Ten- 
nyson fully agreed, and he determined not to fall into the 
error himself. He resolved to give "emotion" its rightful 
place, to listen to his heart no less than to his head. Already 
he had, as we have seen, by a process o£ mental reasoning, 
accepted love between human souls as a fact in his philos- 
ophy of life. Now, listening to his heart, he was carried 
further to the belief that love is not only within us but like- 
wise without us, an essential part of the external universe. 
This belief which his heart had asserted, his intellect, when 
appealed to, affirmed, assuming that love must indeed be a 
part of the universal plan, since otherwise life would be 
nothing but a delusive mockery. 

Something which he had frequently noted— which at first 
shocked and grieved him— was the fact that with the lapse 
of time our bereavements lose much of their poignancy. 
That regret itself should die, that love should change to in- 
difference, seemed to him at first a certain evidence of man's 
weakness and selfishness. His grief he resolved to cherish. 
Yet even to him, after a time, came, in spite of himself, a 
lessening of the bitterness of grief, a renewed enjoyment of 
life. His harp would fain sound only notes of woe; but 
somehow, 

* ' The glory of the sum of things 
Would flash along the chords." 

The truth was that the buoyancy of his spirit had got 
the better of his determination. It took some time for 
the spirit thus to assert itself; but the assertion was 
none the less positive and insistent. Tennyson finally ac- 
cepted this cheerful self-assertion of his spirit as another 
fact in the problem. Believing that the spirit is divine and 
hence authoritative, he was finally willing to admit that it 



IN MEMOKIAM 25 

may have some finer knowledge of the Eternal Verities than 
the intellect alone can give. This admission was one reason 
why he so carefully emphasized the chronological element 
in the poem. He wished to make clear the slow but steady 
influence of Time's healing touch. 

The fundamental, conclusive idea of the poem Tennyson 
tersely stated in conversation during the last summer of 
his life:— "God is Love, transcendent, all-pervading! We 
do not get this faith from Nature or the world. If we look 
on Nature alone, full of perfection and imperfection, she 
tells us that God is disease, murder and rapine. We get 
this faith from ourselves, from what is highest within us, 
which recognizes that there is not one fruitless pang, just 
as there is not one lost good." {Memoir, I, 314.) A poet- 
ical statement of the same idea is found in CXXIV, and 
elsewhere. 

This, then, is the significance of "In Memoriam." It is 
a poem in which a master thinker, in the presence of life's 
most serious problems, faces the difficulties squarely, finds 
them at first seemingly insurmountable, but gradually, by 
being true to the best within him, by accepting his spiritual 
self as an authentic oracle, and by positing Love as a uni- 
versal law, attains through gloom and doubt and wistful 
yearnings to final faith and peace. 

B. 

It is a great mistake to regard "In Memoriam ,, as a 
series of disconnected poems. Tennyson, it is true, at first 
thought of calling his work "Fragments of an Elegy. " At 
other times he spoke of the separate poems as "The 
Elegies." As the series grew into its final form, however, 
he saw that such a name would not be fair to his work or to 
himself. The poem, as it now stands, is a unit, and to be 



26 IN MEMOEIAM 

rightly understood and duly appreciated it must be con- 
sidered as a whole. 

In order to consider anything as a whole it is first neces- 
sary to see the relation of part to part. All students of 
"In Memoriam" have accordingly felt the necessity of 
grouping the one hundred and thirty-one poems of the 
series in related sections. The poet himself felt this neces- 
sity and mentioned two different ways in which the group- 
ing might be done. One method, mentioned by his son in 
the Memoir ( I, 305 ) , is by a four- fold division, the Christ- 
mas poems marking the breaks. The other was suggested 
by the poet to Mr. Knowles (The Nineteenth Century, 
XXXIII, 182). According to this plan there are "nine 
natural groups or divisions." Some commentators have 
adopted one method ; and some, the other ; while still others 
have preferred groupings of their own. It would seem, 
however, that groupings given by the author should be pre- 
ferred. Each of the plans mentioned by him has its ad- 
vantages, and there is no reason why they should not be 
combined. In fact, they coincide except that the four-fold 
division makes a break at LXXVIII, whereas the nine-fold 
division does not. By recognizing this break, we find that 
the series falls into four "cycles," each of which, except 
the last, is subdivided into two or more groups. Each 
"cycle," except the first, and possibly the last, represents 
the thoughts and feelings of a year. Each is in a different 
mood; each marks a well-defined stage in intellectual and 
spiritual development. 

It is, of course, not to be supposed that these time indica- 
tions are exactly correct. * ' It must be remembered, ' ' wrote 
Tennyson, "that this is a poem, not an actual biography." 
(Memoir, I, 304.) The period covered by the compositions 
was, as a matter of fact, much more than three and one- 



IN MEMORIAM 



27 



half years. The -third Christmas poem does not refer to the 
Christmas of 1835, as some have supposed, but to that of 



Sep t. 15th 
Arthur's Deathday 




Spring 



C-^y Arthur's Birthday 
Feb. 1st 



New Year's Day 



Christmas 



CHART SHOWING STRUCTURE OP IN MEMORIAM. 

1837. Still, from the point of view of the poem itself, these 
discrepancies may well be ignored. The poet evidently 
wished his readers to think of the series as having been 
written in somewhat less than four years, and as represent- 
ing the changing moods which came to him during that 
period. Each year he mentions the coming of the spring; 
twice he refers to the anniversary of his friend's death; 
once he makes mention of his friend's birthday. The 
noting of this time element and the comparison of the 



28 IN MEMORIAM 

various poems written on the recurrence of certain days or 
seasons is essential to a true understanding not only of the 
structure, but of the meaning of the poem. The accom- 
panying chart gives an idea of the relation of the ' ' cycles. ' ' 



The metre of "In Memoriam" is iambic tetrameter, the 
lines being arranged in quatrains riming abba. In regard 
to this stanza-form, Tennyson himself said: "I had no 
notion till 1880 that Lord Herbert of Cherbury had writ- 
ten his occasional verses in the same metre. I believed 
myself the originator of the metre, until after 'In 
Memoriam' came out, when some one told me that Ben 
Jonson 1 and Sir Philip Sidney 2 had used it." (Memoir, 
I, 305-6.) It has been noted that several other poets had 
also anticipated Tennyson in the use of this verse-form. 3 
Prior to the publication of "In Memoriam," Tennyson had 
himself employed the metre in three poems, published in 
the volumes of 1842. 

But the question of originality is, after all, a minor 
matter. What is of real significance is the adaptability of 
the form to the work in hand. That an elegy should have 
a slow-moving and dignified metre is self-evident; that the 
metre of "In Memoriam" meets this requirement, a little 
consideration will make clear. It is a significant fact that 
the rime for the first line, instead of coming in the follow- 
ing line, as in the couplet, or in the third line, as in the more 
usual stanza-form, is withheld until the fourth line. This 

1 In "Underwoods" XXXIX. 

2 In translation of the 37th Psalm. 

8 For a discussion of this matter, see an article by C. A. Smith in 
The Dial, Vol. XXII, p. 351. 



IN MEMORIAM 29 

causes a suspense which suggests deliberation and fits in 
admirably with the pensive mood of the poem. Again, 
Tennyson desired a metre which would allow him to weave 
together his stanzas into strongly unified poems. Now in 
couplets or triplets, or in quatrains where the final rime is 
made prominent, the final riming word emphasizes the close 
of the stanza, and, as it were, calls upon the mind to rest. 
It is a familiar fact that Shakespeare very frequently em- 
ployed a couplet at the close of a scene or a speech for this 
very purpose. But in the ' ' envelope quatrain, ' ' as the ' ' In 
Memoriam" stanza may be called, the final rime-emphasis 
is greatly reduced by the fact that the riming word with 
which the final word agrees is three lines back. The 
stanzas, accordingly, do not stand out prominently as 
stanzas, but easily coalesce. This is illustrated in a striking 
way by LXXXVI. On the other hand, if the poet wishes 
to emphasize individual lines in the envelope quatrain form 
of verse, he can easily do so, as is seen in CVI. 

The metre of "In Memoriam" is thus especially appro- 
priate, and in the use of it Tennyson shows a master's skill. 
Some cases of special felicity are mentioned in the notes. 
The student can readily find other examples for himself. 

III. Bibliographical 

- For the thorough study of " In Memoriam, ' ' or any other 
of Tennyson's works, two books are of prime importance, 
namely, the Complete Works of Tennyson (published by 
Macmillan; Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; or Crowell), and 
Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Memoir, by His Son (two vol- 
umes, Macmillan). In addition to these, the. following, 
among many, will be found especially helpful: 

The Poetry of Tennyson, by Henry Van Dyke (Scrib- 
ners ) . 



30 1$ MEMORIAM 

Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life, by 
Stop ford A. Brooke (Putnam). 

A Tennyson Primer, by William M. Dixon (Dodd, Mead 
& Co.). 

The following books on "In Memoriam" will be found 
suggestive : 

Tennyson's "In Memoriam," Its Purpose and Its Struc- 
ture, by John F. Genung (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). 

Prolegomena to "In Memoriam," by Thomas Davidson 
(H., M. & Co.). 

"In Memoriam," edited with notes by William J. Rolfe 
(H., M. & Co.). 

Select Poems of Tennyson (containing forty of the "In 
Memoriam" poems), edited by Henry Van Dyke, and D. L. 
Chambers (Ginn & Co.). 

"In Memoriam," edited by H. C. Beeching (Macmillan). 

A companion to "In Memoriam," by Elizabeth R. Chap- 
man (Macmillan). 

A key to Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam," by Alfred 
Gatty (Geo. Bell & Sons, London). 

A Commentary on Tennyson's "In Memoriam," by A. C. 
Bradley (Macmillan). 

"In Memoriam," edited with a commentary by Arthur 
W. Robinson (Cambridge Univ. Press). 

Tennyson and "In Memoriam," by Joseph Jacobs 

(Nutt). 
"In Memoriam," with analysis and notes, by Charles 

Mansford (Dutton). 



Prologue. 



A. H. H. 

OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. 

1. Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
Believing where we cannot prove ; 

2. Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 
Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made ! 

3. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 
And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

4. Thou seemest human and divine, 

The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
Our wills are ours, we know not how; 
Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

5. Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease to be : 
They are but broken lights of thee, 
And thou, Lord, art more than they. 

6. We have but faith : we cannot know ; 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 
And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness: let it grow. 
31 



32 IN MEMORIAM 

7. Let knowledge grow from more to more, 

But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before, 

8. But vaster. We are fools and slight; 

We mock thee when we do not fear : 
But help thy foolish ones to bear ; 
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 

9. Forgive what seem'd my sin in me, 

What seem'd my worth since I began; 
For merit lives from man to man, 
And not from man, Lord, to thee. 

10. Forgive my grief for one removed, 

Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 
I find him worthier to be loved. 

11. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, 

Confusions of a wasted youth ; 
Forgive them where they fail in truth, 
And in thy wisdom make me wise. 

1849 



CYCLE I. LOSS AND PERSONAL GRIEF 

Section I. The First Despair: Moods op Gloom and 
Deep Depression 



The poet won- 
ders if there 
can be a hid- 
den blessing in 
bereavement . 



I held it truth, with him who sings - 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

But who shall so forecast the years 
And find in loss a gain to match, 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 

The far-off interest of tears? 



4. 



Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown 'd, 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 

To dance with Death, to beat the ground, 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of love, and boast, 
"Behold the man that loved and lost, 

But all he was is overworn." 



II. 



The church- 
yard Yew, 
gloomy, un- 
changing, is 
fit type of 
his -rief. 



1. 



33 



Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the underlying dead, 
Thy fibres net the dreamless head, 

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 



34 



IN MEMORIAM 



3. 



The seasons bring the flower again, 

And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
And in the dusk of thee the clock 

Beats out the little lives of men. 

not for thee the glow, the bloom, 
Who changest not in any gale, 
Nor branding summer suns avail 

To touch thy thousand years of gloom; 



4. And gazing on thee, sullen tree, 

Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
I seem to fail from out my blood 
And grow incorporate into thee. 



III. 



He cherishes 
gloomy 
thoughts, 
though con- 
vinced of their 
falsity. 



Sorrow, cruel fellowship, 

O priestess in the vaults of Death, 
O sweet and bitter in a breath, 

What whispers from thy lying lip ? 



2. "The stars," she whispers, "blindly run; 

A web is woven across the sky ; 
From out waste places comes a cry, 
And murmurs from the dying sun : 

3. "And all the phantom, Nature, stands — 

With all the music in her tone, 
A hollow echo of my own,— 
A hollow form with empty hands." 



4. And shall I take a thing so blind, 

Embrace her as my natural good ; 
Or crush her, like a vice of blood, 
Upon the threshold of the mind? 



IN MEMORIAM 



35 



After a night 
pf troubled 
dreams, he 
resolves to 
throw off the 
lethargy of 
grief. 



IV. 



To Sleep I give my powers away ; 

My will is bondsman to the dark; 

I sit within a helmless bark, 
And with my heart I muse and say: 

* ' heart, how fares it with thee now, 

That thou shouldst fail from thy de- 
sire, 
Who scarcely darest to inquire, 

4 What is it makes me beat so low ? ' 



Composition, 
though inad- 
equate to ex- 
press his feel- 
ings, gives his 
heart some 
relief. 



3. Something it is which thou hast lost, 

Some pleasure from thine early years. 
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 
That grief hath shaken into frost ! ' ' 

4. Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 

All night below the darken 'd eyes; 
With morning wakes the will, and 
cries, 
"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss. ,, 



V. 



I sometimes hold it half a sin 

To put in words the grief I feel ; 
For words, like Nature, half reveal 

And half conceal the soul within. 

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
A use in measured language lies ; 
The sad mechanic exercise, 

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, 
Like coarsest clothes against the cold; 
But that large grief which these enfold 

Is given in outline and no more. 



36 



IN MEMOBIAM 



VI. 



The poet re- ^ 
fleets that the 
commonplaces 
of condolence 
in the presence 
of Death are 
futile. 



One writes that "Other friends remain," 
That "Loss is common to the race" — 
And common is the commonplace, 

And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 



2. That loss is common would not make 

My own less bitter, rather more : 
Too common ! Never morning wore 
To evening but some heart did break. 

3. father, wheresoe'er thou be, 

Who pledgest now thy gallant son, 
A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 
Hath still 'd the life that beat from thee. 

4. mother, praying God will save 

Thy sailor,— while thy head is bow'd, 
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 
Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 

5. Ye know no more than I who wrought 

At that last hour to please him well ; 
Who mused on all 1 had to tell, 
And something written, something thought ; 

6. Expecting still his advent home ; 

And ever met him on his way 
With wishes, thinking "Here to-day," 
Or, "Here to-morrow will he come." 



7. somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, 
That sittest ranging golden hair ; 
And glad to find thyself so fair, 
Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! 



IN MEMOKIAM 



37 



8. For now her father's chimney glows 

In expectation of a guest; 
And thinking "This will please him 
best," 
She takes a riband or a rose ; 

9. For he will see them on to-night ; 

And with the thought her color burns ; 
And, having left the glass, she turns 
Once more to set a ringlet right ; 

10. And, even when she turn'd, the curse 

Had fallen, and her future lord 
Was drown 'd in passing thro' the ford, 
Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 

11. what to her shall be the end? 

And what to me remains of good 1 
To her perpetual maidenhood, 
And unto me no second friend. 



VII. 



The familiar 
door is re- 
visited and his 
desolation even 
more keenly 
realized. 



1. Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street, 
Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, waiting for a hand, 



A hand that can be claspt no more- 
Behold me, for I cannot sleep, 
And like a guilty thing I creep 

At earliest morning to the door. 



He is not here ; but far away 

The noise of life begins again, 
And ghastly thro ' the drizzling rain 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. 



38 



IN MEMOEIAM 

VIII. 



^m^SSlf he ^* ^ na PPy l° ver wno nas come 
because his To look on her that loves him well, 

SShur. pleased Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, 

And learns her gone and far from home,— 

2. He saddens, all the magic light 

Dies off at once from bower and hall, 
And all the place is dark, and all 
The chambers emptied of delight : 

3. So find I every pleasant spot 

In which we two were wont to meet, 
The field, the chamber, and the street, 
For all is dark where thou art not. 



4. Yet as that other, wandering there 

In those deserted walks, may find 
A flower beat with rain and wind, 
iWhich once she foster 'd up with care; 

5. So seems it in my deep regret, 

my forsaken heart, with thee 
And this poor flower of poesy 

Which, little cared for, fades not yet. 

6. But since it pleased a vanish 'd eye, 

1 go to plant it on his tomb, 
That if it can it there may bloom; 

Or, dying, there at least may die. 



IN MEMOKIAM 



39 



Section II. The Poet Follows in Spirit the Ship Bring- 
ing Arthur's Body Home for Burial : Various 
Moods op Grief 

IX. 



A prayer for 
a quiet 
voyage. 



1. Fair ship, that from the Italian shore 

Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
With my lost Arthur's loved remains, 
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 

2. So draw him home to those that mourn 

In vain ; a favorable speed 
Ruffle thy mirror 'd mast, and lead 
Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 

3. All night no ruder air perplex 

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, 

bright 
As our pure love, thro ' early light 
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 

4. Sphere all your lights around, above ; 

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; 
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, 
My friend, the brother of my love ; 

5. My Arthur, whom I shall not see 

Till all my widow 'd race be run; 
Dear as the mother to the son, 
More than my brothers are to me. 



To be buried 
at home is 
better than to 
be lost at sea. 



1. I hear the noise about thy keel ; 

I hear the bell struck in the night: 
I see the cabin-window bright; 
I see the sailor at the wheel. 



40 



IN MEMORIAM 



2. Thou bring 'st the sailor to his wife, 

And travell'd men from foreign lands; 
And letters unto trembling hands ; 
And, thy dark freight, a vanish 'd life. 

3. So bring him : we have idle dreams : 

This look of quiet flatters thus 
Our home-bred fancies : to us, 
The fools of habit, sweeter seems 



5. 



To rest beneath the clover sod, 

That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 

The chalice of the grapes of God, 

Than if with thee the roaring wells 

Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine, 
And hands so often claspt in mine 

Should toss with tangle and with shells 



XI. 



Reverie during 
a walk on a 
calm autumn 
morning. 



1. Calm is the morn without a sound, 

Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 
And only thro' the faded leaf 
The chestnut pattering to the ground ; 

2. Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 

And on these dews that drench the 

furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 
That twinkle into green and gold ; 

3. Calm and still light on yon great plain 

That sweeps with all its autumn bow- 
ers, 

And crowded farms and lessening tow- 
ers, 
To mingle with the bounding main; 



IN MEMORIAM 



41 



4. Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 

These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 
If any calm, a calm despair : 

5. Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 

And waves that sway themselves in 

rest, 
And dead calm in that noble breast 
Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 



XII. 



In imagination 
he visits the 
ship. An hour 
passes un- 
heeded. 



Lo, as a dove when up she springs 

To bear thro' heaven a tale of woe, 
Some dolorous message knit below 

The wild pulsation of her wings, 



2. Like her I go ; I cannot stay ; 

I leave this mortal ark behind, 
A weight of nerves without a mind, 
And leave the cliffs, and haste away 

3. O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 

And reach 'the glow of southern skies, 
And see the sails at distance rise, 
And linger weeping on the marge, 

4. And saying, " Comes he thus, my friend? 

Is this the end of all my care?" 
And circle moaning in the air, 
"Is this the end? Is this the end?" 



5. And forward dart again, and play 

About the prow, and back return 
To where the body sits, and learn 
That I have been an hour away. 



42 



IN MEMORIAM 



XIII. 



He cannot yet 
realize his 
loss. 



1. Tears of the widower, when he sees 

A late-lost form that sleep reveals, 
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 
Her place is empty, fall like these ; 



2. Which weep a loss for ever new, 

A void where heart on heart reposed ; 
And, where warm hands have prest 
and closed, 
Silence, till I be silent too; 

3. Which weep the comrade of my choice, 

An awful thought, a life removed, 
The human-hearted man I loved, 
A spirit, not a breathing voice. 

4. Come, Time, and teach me, many years, 

I do not suffer in a dream; 
For now so strange do these things 
seem, 
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears, 

5. My fancies time to rise on wing, 

And glance about the approaching 

sails, 
As tho' they brought but merchants' 

bales, 
And not the burthen that they bring. 

XIV. 



[To see Arthur 1 
again would 
not seem 

Strange. 



If one should bring me this report, 

That thou hadst touch 'd the land to- 
day, 
And I went down unto the quay, 

And found thee lying in the port ; 



IN MEMORIAM 43 

2. And standing, muffled round with woe, 

Should see thy passengers in rank 
Come stepping lightly down the plank, 
And beckoning unto those they know; 

3. And if along with these should come 

The man I held as half-divine, 
Should strike a sudden hand in mine, 
And ask a thousand things of home; 

4. And I should tell him all my pain, 

And. how my life had droop 'd of late, 
And he should sorrow o'er my state 
And marvel what possess 'd my brain; 

5. And I perceived no touch of change, 

No hint of death in all his frame, 
But found him all in all the same, 
I should not feel it to be strange. 



XV. 



The storm of \ To-night the winds begin to rise 

the evening is ° °.._ 

reflected in the And roar f rom yonder dropping day 



poet's mood. 



The last red leaf is whirl 'd away, 
The rooks are blown about the skies; 

2. The forest crack 'd, the waters curl'd, 

The cattle huddled on the lea ; 
And wildly dash 'd on tower and tree 
The sunbeam strikes along the world : 

3. And but for fancies, which aver 

That all thy motions gently pass 
Athwart a plane of molten glass, 
I scarce could brook the strain and stir 



44 IN MEMOKIAM 

4. That makes the barren branches loud ; 

And Lut for fear it is not so, 
The wild unrest that lives in woe 
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 

5. That rises upward always higher, 

And onward drags a laboring breast, 
And topples round the dreary west, 
A looming bastion fringed with fire. 



XVI. 



dipa^iAls L What words are these have fallen from me ? 
minded ° f ^ an cami despair and wild unrest 

spirit. ' Be tenants of a single breast, 

Or Sorrow such a changeling be? 

2. Or doth she only seem to take 

The touch of change in calm or storm, 
But knows no more of transient form 
In her deep self than some dead lake 

3. That holds the shadow of a lark 

Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 
Or has the shock, so harshly given, 
Confused me like the unhappy bark 

4. That strikes by night a craggy shelf, 

And staggers blindly ere she sink? 
And stunn'd me from my power to 
think 
And all my knowledge of myself ; 

5. And made me that delirious man 

Whose fancy fuses old and new, 
And fla'shes into false and true, 
And mingles all without a plan? 



IN MEMOMAM 

XVII. 



45 



Blessings on 
the good ship 
that has 
brought home 
the body. 



1. Thou comest, much wept for ; such a breeze 

CompeU'd thy canvas, and my prayer 
Was as the whisper of an air 
To breathe thee over lonely seas. 

2. For I in spirit saw thee move 

Thro ' circles of the bounding sky, 
Week after week : the days go by : 
Come quick, thou bringest all I love. 

3. Henceforth, wherever thou mayst roam, 

My blessing, like a line of light, 
Is on the waters day and night, 
And like a beacon guards thee home. 

4. So may whatever tempest mars 

Mid-ocean spare thee, sacred bark, 
And balmy drops in summer dark 
Slide from the bosom of the stars, 

5. So kind an office hath been done, 

Such precious relics brought by thee, 
The dust of him I shall not see 
Till all my widow 'd race be run. 



XVIII. 



Thoughts on 
hearing of the 
burial at 
Glevedon. 



2. 



'T is well ; 't is something ; we may stand 
Where he in English earth is laid, 
And from his ashes may be made 

The violet of his native land. 

'T is little ; but it looks in truth 

As if the quiet bones were blest, 
Among familiar names to rest 

And in the places of his youth. 



46 IN MEMORIAM 

3. Come then, 'pure hands, and bear the head 

That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, 
And come, whatever loves to weep, 
And hear the ritual of the dead. 

4. Ah yet, even yet, if this might be, 

I, falling on his faithful heart, 
Would breathing thro' his lips impart 
The life that almost dies in me ; 

5. That dies not, but endures with pain, 

And slowly forms the firmer mind, 
Treasuring the look it cannot find, 
The words that are not heard again. 



XIX. 



ebb fi a n n d d flow 1- The Danube to the Severn gave 
of the wye The darken 'd heart that beat no more; 

Sot!" ° f his They laid him by the pleasant shore, 

And in the hearing of the wave. 

2. There twice a day the Severn fills ; 

The salt sea-water passes by, 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
And makes a silence in the hills. 

3. The Wye is hush 'd nor moved along, 

And hush'd my deepest grief of all, 
When, fill'd with tears that cannot fall, 
I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

4. The tide flows down, the wave again 

Is vocal in its wooded walls; 
My deeper anguish also falls, 
And I can speak a little then. 



IN MEMORIAL 



47 



XX. 



Another anal- 
ogy for his 
varying moods 
of grief. 



The lesser griefs that may be said, 

That breathe a thousand tender vows, 
Are but as servants in a house 

Where lies the master newly dead ; 



2. Who speak their feeling as it is, 

And weep the fulness from the mind : 
"It will be hard," they say, "to find 
Another service such as this." 

3. My lighter moods are like to these, 

That out of words a comfort win ; 
But there are other griefs within, 
And tears that at their fountain freeze ; 

1 For by the hearth the children sit 

Cold in that atmosphere of death, 
And scarce endure to draw the breath, 
Or like to noiseless phantoms flit : 

5 But open converse is there none, 

So much the vital spirits sink 
To see the vacant chair, and think, 
"How good! how kind! and he is gone." 

Section III. Calmer Moods, Mainly Retrospective 

XXL 



[Though the 
poet is criti- 
cised for put- 
ting his sor- 
row into song, 
his expression 
is inevitable. 



1. I sing to him that rests below, 

And, since the grasses round me wave, 
I take the grasses of the grave, 
And make them pipes whereon to blow. 



48 



IN MEMORIAM 



2. The traveller hears me now and then, 

And sometimes harshly will he speak: 
"This fellow would make weakness 
weak, 
And melt the waxen hearts of men.' , 

3. Another answers, "Let him be, 

He loves to make parade of pain, 
That with his piping he may gain 
The praise that comes to constancy." 

4. A third is wroth : " Is this an hour 

For private sorrow's barren song, 
When more and more the people 
throng 
The chairs and thrones of civil power? 

5. "A time to sicken and to swoon, 

When Science reaches forth her arms 
To feel from world to world, and 
charms 
Her secret from the latest moon?" 

6. Behold, ye speak an idle thing ; 

Ye never knew the sacred dust : 
I do but sing because I must, 
And pipe but as the linnets sing: 

7. And one is glad ; her note is gay, 

For now her little ones have ranged ; 
And one is sad ; her note is changed, 
Because her brood is stolen away. 

XXII. 



£[appy memo- 
ries on the 
path that 
led to the 
phadow. 



1. The path by which we twain did go, 

Which led by tracts that pleased us 

well, 
Thro' £our sweet years arose and fell, 
From flower to flower, from snow to snow ; 



IN MEMORIAM 



49 



2. And we with singing cheer 'd the way, 

And, crown 'd with all the season lent, 
From April on to April went, 
And glad at heart from May to May : 

3. But where the path we walk'd began 

To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
As we descended following Hope, 
There sat the Shadow fear 'd of man ; 

4. Who broke our fair companionship, 

And spread his mantle dark and cold, 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 
And dull'd the murmur on thy lip, 

5. And bore thee where I could not see 

Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste, 
And think that somewhere in the waste 
The Shadow sits and waits for me. 



XXIII. 



JIavingf come 
close to death, 
he looks hack 
upon the per- 
fect friend- 
ship of the 
pld days. 



1. Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, 

Or breaking into song by fits, 

Alone, alone, to where he sits, 

The Shadow cloak 'd from head to foot, 

2. Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 

I wander, often falling lame, 
And looking back to whence I came 
Or on to where the pathway leads ; 



3. And crying, How changed from where it 



ran 



Thro ' lands where not a leaf was dumb, 
But all the lavish hills would hum 
The murmur of a happy Pan : 



50 



IN MEMOEIAM 



4. When each by turns was guide to each, 

And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with 
Thought 
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 

5. And all we met was fair and good, 

And all was good that Time could 

bring, 
And all the secret of the Spring 
Moved in the chambers of the blood; 

6. And many an old philosophy 

On Argive heights divinely sang, 
And round us all the thicket rang 
To many a flute of Arcady. 

XXIV. 



fluery: How 
much of the 
brightness of 
the past is due 
to imagina- 
tion 1 



1. And was the day of my delight 
As pure and perfect as I say? 
The very source and fount of Day 
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night. 



2. If all was good and fair we met, 

This earth had been the Paradise 
It never look'd to human eyes 
Since our first Sun arose and set. 

3. And is it that the haze of grief 

Makes former gladness loom so great? 
The lowness of the present state, 
That sets the past in this relief ? 



4. Or that the past will always win 
A glory from its being far, 
And Orb into the perfect star 
We saw not when we moved therein ? 



IN MEMORIAM 



51 



Answer: None, 
for the pres- 
ence of Love 

glorified it. 



XXV. 

1. I know that this was Life, — the track 

AVhereon with equal feet we fared; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 
The daily burden for the back. 

2. But this it was that made me move 

As light as carrier-birds in air ; 
I loved the weight I had to bear, 
Because it needed help of Love : 

3. Nor could I weary, heart or limb, 

"When mighty Love would cleave in 

twain 
The lading of a single pain, 
And part it, giving half to him. 



He must 
lieve love 
immortal 
or die. 



XXVI. 

1. Still onward winds the dreary way ; 

I with it; for I long to prove 
No lapse of moons can canker Love, 
Whatever fickle tongues may say. 

2. And if that eye which watches guilt 

And goodness, and hath power to see 
Within the green the moulder 'd tree, 
And towers fall'n as soon as built— 



0, if indeed that eye foresee 

Or see (in Him is no before) 
In more of life true life no more 

And Love the indifference to be, 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
Breaks hither over Indian seas, 
That Shadow waiting with the keys, 

To shroud me from my proper scorn. 



52 



IN MEMOEIAM 

XXVII. 



Ignorance is 
not bliss; to 
have known 
Love is 
blessedness. 



1. I envy not in any moods 

The captive void of noble rage, 
The linnet born within the cage, 
That never knew the summer woods : 



2. I envy not the beast that takes 

His license in the field of time, 
Unfetter 'd by the sense of crime, 
To whom a conscience never wakes ; 

3. Nor, what may count itself as blest, 

The heart that never plighted troth 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 
Nor any want-begotten rest. 



4. I hold it true, whate'er befall; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most: 
'T is better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 



CYCLE II. DOUBTS AND WISTFUL YEARNINGS 

Section IV. Christmas-tide, and the Questionings it 

Suggests Concerning the Future Life: 

Moods of Perplexity and Doubt 

XXVIII. 

chStmas-tide *• Tlie ^ me draws near tne birth of Christ : 
The moon is hid ; the night is still ; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 
Answer each other in the mist. 

2. Four voices of four hamlets round, 

From far and near, on mead and moor, 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 
Were shut between me and the sound : 

3. Each voice four changes on the wind, 

That now dilate, and now decrease, 
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and 
peace, 
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 

4. This year I slept and woke with pain, 

I almost wish 'd no more to wake, 
And that my hold on life would break 
Before I heard those bells again : 

5. But they my troubled spirit rule, 

For they controll'd me when a boy; 
They bring me sorrow touch 'd with 

joy, 

The merry, merry bells of Yule. 
53 



54 



IN MEMOEIAM 



He is in sym- 
pathy with the 
Christmas fes- 
tivities since 
they, too, do 
not love 
change and 
death. 



XXIX. 

1. With such compelling cause to grieve 

As daily vexes household peace, 
And chains regret to his decease, 
How dare we keep our Christmas-eve ; 

2. Which brings no more a welcome guest 

To enrich the threshold of the night 
With shower 'd largess of delight 
In dance and song and game and jest? 

3. Yet go, and while the holly boughs 

Entwine the cold baptismal font, 
Make one wreath more for Use and 
Wont, 
That guard the portals of the house ; 

4. Old sisters of a day gone by, 

Gray nurses, loving nothing new; 
Why should they miss their yearly due 
Before their time ? They too will die. 

XXX. 



The day, sad 
as it is, sug- 
gests the glad 
thought of 
immortality. 



3. 



With trembling fingers did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
A rainy cloud possess 'd the earth, 

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 

At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gamboll'd, making vain pretence 
Of gladness, with an awful sense 

Of one mute Shadow watching all. 

We paused : the winds were in the beech : 
We heard them sweep the winter land ; 
And in a circle hand-in-hand 

Sat silent, looking each at each. 



IN MEMORIAM 55 

4. Then echo-like our voices rang; 

We sung, tho' every eye was dim, 
A merry song we sang with him 
Last year : impetuously we sang. 

5. We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 
"They rest," we said, "their sleep is 
sweet, ' ' 
And silence follow 'd, and we wept. 

6. Our voices took a higher range; 

Once more we sang: "They do not die 
Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
Nor change to us, although they change ; 

7. "Rapt from the fickle and the frail 

With gather 'd power, yet the same, 
Pierces the keen seraphic flame 
From orb to orb, from veil to veil.' , 

8. Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, 

Draw forth the cheerful day from 

night ; 
Father, touch the east, and light 
The light that shone when Hope was born. 

XXXI. 

J?. 8 fv^'L 1. When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, 

the raising of , _ , , 

xazarus is And home to Mary s house return a, 

recalled. Wag thijg demanded _if he yearn 'd 

To hear her weeping by his grave ? 

2. "Where wert thou, brother, those four 
days?" 
There lives no record of reply, 
Which telling what it is to die 
Had surely added praise to praise. 



56 



IN MEMOEIAM 



3. From every house the neighbors met, 

The streets were fill'd with joyful 

sound, 
A solemn gladness even crown 'd 
The purple brows of Olivet. 

4. Behold a man raised up by Christ ! 

The rest remaineth unreveal 'd ; 
He told it not, or something seal'd 
The lips of that Evangelist. 

XXXII. 



Mary, sister 
of Lazarus, is 
the type of 
perfect faith. 



1. Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, 

Nor other thought her mind admits 

But, he was dead, and there he sits, 

And he that brought him back is there. 



2. Then one deep love doth supersede 

All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother's face, 
And rests upon the Life indeed. 

3. All subtle thought, all curious fears, 

Borne down by gladness so complete, 
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 
With costly spikenard and with tears. 

4. Thrice blest whose lives are faithful pray- 

ers, 
"Whose loves in higher love endure; 
What souls possess themselves so pure, 
Or is there blessedness like theirs? 

XXXIII. 



Simple faith 
has its ad- 
vantages and 
usefulness. 



1. thou that after toil and storm 

Mayst seem to have reach 'd a purer air, 
Whose 'faith has centre everywhere, 
Nor cares to fix itself to form, 



IN MEMOKIAM 57 

Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
Her early Heaven, her happy views; 
Nor thou with shadow 'd hint confuse 

A life that leads melodious days. 

Her faith thro ' form is pure as thine, 
Her hands are quicker unto good : 
0, sacred be the flesh and blood 

To which she links a truth divine ! 

See thou, that countest reason ripe 
In holding by the law within, 
Thou fail not in a world of sin, 

And even for want of such a type. 



XXXIV. 



?ug a ges n ts !• My own dim life should teach me this, 

immortality. That life shall live for evermore, 

Else earth is darkness at the core, 
And dust and ashes all that is : 



2. This round of green, this orb of flame, 

Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks 
In some wild poet, when he works 
Without a conscience or an aim. 

3. What then were God to such as I ? 

'T were hardly worth my while to 

choose 
Of things all mortal, or to use 
A little patience ere I die ; 

4. 'T were best at once to sink to peace, 

Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 
Of vacant darkness and to cease. 



58 IN MEMOEIAM 



XXXV. 

gives a?suT- i8e * *• ^ et ^ some voice that man could trust 
ance of it. Should murmur from the narrow 

house, 
1 ' The cheeks drop in, the body bows ; 
Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:" 

2. Might I not say, "Yet even here, 

But for one hour, Love, I strive 
To keep so sweet a thing alive?" 
But I should turn mine ears and hear 

3. The moanings of the homeless sea, 

The sound of streams that swift or slow 
Draw down yEonian hills, and sow 
The dust of continents to be ; 

4. And Love would answer with a sigh, 

"The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will change my sweetness more and 
more, 
Half-dead to know that I shall die." 

5. me, what profits it to put 

An idle case ? If Death were seen 
At first as Death, Love had not been, 
Or been in narrowest working shut, 

6. Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, 

Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape 
Had bruised the herb and crush 'd the 
grape, - 
And bask'd and batten 'd in the woods. 



IN MEMORIAM 



59 



Revelation 
clearly pro- 
claims it. 



XXXVI. 

1. Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name 
Of Him that made them current coin ; 



Though un- 
worthy to deal 
with these 
high themes, 
he does so for 
Arthur's sake. 



2. For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 

Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
When truth embodied in a tale 
Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

3. And so the Word had breath, and wrought 

With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought ; 

4. Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 

Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
And those wild eyes that watch the 
wave 
In roarings round the coral reef. 

XXXVII. 

1. Urania speaks with darken 'd brow: 

"Thou pratest here where thou art 

least ; 
This faith has many a purer priest, 
And many an abler voice than thou. 

2. "Go down beside thy native rill, 

On thy Parnassus set thy feet, 
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 
About the ledges of the hill." 



3. And my Melpomene replies, 

A touch of shame upon her cheek 
"I am not worthy even to speak 
Of thy prevailing mysteries ; 



60 



IN MEMORIAM 



4. "For I am but an earthly Muse, 

And owning but a little art 
To lull with song an aching heart, 
And render human love his dues ; 

5. "But brooding on the dear one dead, 

And all he said of things divine ■ 
(And dear to me as sacred wine 
To dying lips is all he said), 



6. 



"I murmur 'd, as I came along, 

Of comfort claspt in truth reveal M; 
And loiter 'd in the master's field, 

And darken 'd sanctities with song." 



XXXVIII. 



Springtime 
brings no glad- 
ness, for all 
is changed. 



With weary steps I loiter on, 

Tho' always under alter 'd skies 
The purple from the distance dies, 

My prospect and horizon gone. 



2. No joy the blowing season gives, 

The herald melodies of spring, 
But in the songs I love to sing 
A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

3. If any care for what is here 

Survive in spirits render 'd free, 
Then are these songs I sing of thee 
Not all ungrateful to thine ear. 

XXXIX. 



Yet even the 
funereal yew 
shows signs ( 
life and joy. 



Old warder of these buried bones, 

And answering now my random stroke 
With fruitful cloud and living smoke, 

Dark yew, that graspest at the stones 



IN MEMOKIAM 



61 



Death is very 
different from 
the temporary 
separation of 
earthly friends. 



And dippest toward the dreamless head; 
To thee too comes the golden hour 
When flower is feeling after flower; 

But Sorrow— fixt upon the dead, 

3. And darkening the dark graves of men,— 
What whisper 'd from her lying lips? 
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, 
And passes into gloom again. 

XL. 

1. Could we forget the widow 'd hour 

And look on spirits breathed away, 
As on a maiden in the day 
When first she wears her orange-flower ! 

2. When crown 'd with blessing she doth rise 

To take her latest leave of home, 
And hopes and light regrets that come 
Make April of her tender eyes ; 

3. And doubtful joys the father move, 

And tears are on the mother's face, 
As parting with a long embrace 
She enters other realms of love : 



4. Her office there to rear, to teach, 

Becoming as is meet and fit 
A link among the days, to knit 
The generations each with each; 

5. And, doubtless, unto thee is given 

A life that bears immortal fruit 
In those great offices that suit 
Tke full-grown energies of heaven. 

6. Ay me, the difference I discern ! 

How often shall her old fireside 
Be cheer 'd with tidings of the bride, 
How often she herself return, 



62 



IN MEMOEIAM 



7. And tell them all they would have told, 

And bring her babe, and make her 

boast, 
Till even those that miss'd her most 
Shall count new things as dear as old : 

8. But thou and I have shaken hands, 

Till growing winters lay me low ; 
My paths are in the fields I know, 
And thine in undiscover'd lands. 



XLI. 



If life after 
death be prog- 
ress, will not 
Arthur grow 
away from 
him? 



1. Thy spirit ere our fatal loss 

Did ever rise from high to higher ; 
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 
As flies the lighter thro' the gross. 



2. But thou art turn'd to something strange, 

And I have lost the links that bound 
Thy changes ; here upon the ground, 
No more partaker of thy change. 

3. Deep folly ! yet that this could be- 

That I could wing my will with might 
To leap the grades of life and light, 
And flash at once, my friend, to thee. 

4. For tho' my nature rarely yields 

To that vague fear implied in death, 
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, 
The howlings from forgotten fields ; 



5. Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 
An inner trouble I behold, 
A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 



IN MEMORIAM 



63 



6. Tho' following with an upward mind 

The wonders that have come to thee, 
Thro' all the secular to-be, 
But evermore a life behind. 

XLII. 



A possible 
answer to the 
doubt that is 
troubling him. 



1. I vex my heart with fancies dim: 

He still outstript me in the race ; 
It was but unity of place 
That made me dream I rank'd with him. 



3. 



And so may place retain us still, 

And he the much-beloved again, 
A lord of large experience, train 

To riper growth the mind and will : 

And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one that loves, but knows not, 
reaps 

A truth from one that loves and knows ? 



If death be 
sleep, shall 
they not 
awake to- 
gether for a 
rs.ew lifel 



XLIII. 

1. If Sleep and Death be truly one, 

And every spirit's folded bloom 
Thro' all its intervital gloom 
In some long trance should slumber on; 

2. Unconscious of the sliding hour, 

Bare of the body, might it last, 
And silent traces of the past 
Be all the color of the flower : 



So then were nothing lost to man ; 
So that still garden of the souls 
In many a figured leaf enrolls 

The total world since life began ; 



64 



IN MEMOKIAM 



4. And love will last as pure and whole 

As when he loved me here in Time, 
And at the spiritual prime 
Re waken with the dawning soul. 



If the soul haB ^ 
had a pre- 
existence, 
what are we 
to think? 



2. 



3. 



XLIV. 

How fares it with the happy dead ? 

For here the man is more and more ; 

But he forgets the days before 
God shut the doorways of his head. 

The days have vanish 'd, tone and tint, 
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
Gives out at times (he knows not 
whence) 

A little flash, a mystic hint ; 

And in the long harmonious years 

(If Death so taste Lethean springs) 
May some dim touch of earthly things 

Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 

If such a dreamy touch should fall, 

turn thee round, resolve the doubt; 
My guardian angel will speak out 

In that high place, and tell thee all. 

XLV. 



If earthly life 
he the first 
stage, what 
then shall we 
think? 



1. The baby new to earth and sky, 

What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 
Has never thought that ' ' this is I : ' ' 



2. But as he grows he gathers much, 

And learns the use of "I," and "me, : 
And finds "I am not what I see, 
And other than the things I touch.' ' 



IN MEMOKIAM 



65 



3. So rounds he to a separate mind 

From whence clear memory may be- 
gin, 
As thro' the frame that binds him in 
His isolation grows defined. 



In the life to 
come shall not 
our memories 
be perfect ? 



4. This use may lie in blood and breath, 

Which else were fruitless of their due, 
Had man to learn himself anew 
Beyond the second birth of death. 

XL VI. 

1. We ranging down this lower track, 

The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
Is shadow 'd by the growing hour, 
Lest life should fail in looking back. 



2. So be it ; there no shade can last 

In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
But clear from marge to marge shall 
bloom 
The eternal landscape of the past ; 

3. A lifelong tract of time reveal'd; 

The fruitful hours of still increase; 
Days order 'd in a wealthy peace, 
And those five years its richest field. 

4. Love, thy province were not large, 

A bounded field, nor stretching far ; 
Look also, Love, a brooding star 
A rosy warmth from marge to marge ! 

XLVII. 



The doctrine 
of absorption 
into the Di- 
vine Essence 
is vague and 
"unsweet." 



That each, who seems a separate whole, 

Should move his rounds and, fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

Remerging in the general Soul, 



66 



IN MEMOEIAM 



2. Is faith as vague as all unsweet: 

Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside, 
And I shall know him when we meet ; 

3. And we shall sit at endless feast, 

Enjoying each the other's good: 
What vaster dream can hit the mood 
Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least 

4. Upon the last and sharpest height, 

Before the spirits fade away, 
Some landing-place, to clasp and say, 
"Farewell! We lose ourselves in light." 



XLVIII. 



These elegiac 
lays do not 
assume to 
prove any- 
thing; but by 
means of them 
Sorrow merely 
strives to 
cling to the 
"sunnier side 
of doubt." 



1. If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, 

Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here pro- 
posed, 
Then these were such as men might scorn. 

2. Her care is not to part and prove; 

She takes, when harsher moods remit, 
What slender shade of doubt may flit, 
And makes it vassal unto love : 



And hence, indeed, she sports with words, 
But better serves a wholesome law, 
And holds it sin and shame to draw 

The deepest measure from the chords: 



i. Nor dare she trust a larger lay, 

But rather loosens from the lip 
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 
Their wings in tears and skim away. 



IN MEMOKIAM 

XLIX. 



67 



Yet clinging to ^ 
the "sunnier 
side of doubt" 
when grief is 
ever present. 



2. 



From art, from nature, from the schools, 
Let random influences glance, 
Like light in many a shiver 'd lance 

That breaks about the dappled pools: 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, 
The fancy 's tenderest eddy wreathe, 
The slightest air of song shall breathe 

To make the sullen surface crisp. 



4. 



And look thy look, and go thy way, 

But blame not thou the winds that 

make 
The seeming-wanton ripple break, 

The tender-pencil'd shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears 
Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, 
Whose muffled motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 



68 



IN MEMOEIAM 



Section V. Questionings Concerning the Problem of 

Evil : Despondent Moods in Which Doubt 

Seems to Triumph 



L. 



A prayer that 1 
Arthur may 
be with him 
in his hours 
of deep de- 
spondency. 



Be near me when my light is low, 

When the blood creeps, and the nerves 

prick 
And tingle ; and the heart is sick, 

And all the wheels of being slow. 



2. Be near me when the sensuous frame 

Is rack'd with pangs that conquer 

trust ; 
And Time a maniac scattering dust, 
And Life a Fury slinging name. 

3. Be near me when my faith is dry, 

And men the flies of latter spring, 
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing 
And weave their petty cells and die. 

4. Be near me when I fade away, 

To point the term of human strife, 
And on the low dark verge of life 
The twilight of eternal day. 



LI. 



If the dead 
can see us 
through and 
through, what 
must they 
think? 



Do we indeed desire the dead 

Should still be near us at our side ? 
Is there no baseness we would hide ? 

No inner vileness that we dread? 



2. Shall he for whose applause I strove, 

I had such reverence for his blame, 
See with clear eye some hidden shame 
And I be lessen 'd in his love ? 



IN MEMORIAM 



69 



3. I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 

Shall love be blamed for want of faith ? 
There must be wisdom with great 
Death : 
The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 

4. Be near us when we climb or fall : 

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 
To make allowance for us all. 

LIL 



Though his 
sins raise a 
barrier be- 
tween his soul 
and Arthur's, 
he may rise 
to something 
higher and 
surmount the 
barrier. 



1. I cannot love thee as I ought, 

For love reflects the thing beloved; 
My words are only words, and moved 
Upon the topmost froth of thought. 

2. "Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song," 

The Spirit of true love replied; 
"Thou canst not move me from thy 
side, 
Nor human frailty do me wrong. 



"What keeps a spirit wholly true 
To that ideal which he bears ? 
What record? Not the sinless years 

That breathed beneath the Syrian blue : 



4. "So fret not like an idle girl, 

That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. 
Abide : thy wealth is gather 'd in, 
When Time hath sunder 'd shell from 
pearl." 



70 



IN MEMORIAM 

LIII. 



The conquer- 
ing of sin 
gives strength, 
but it is 
dangerous to 
dally with it. 



1. How many a father have I seen, 

A sober man, among his boys, 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 
Who wears his manhood hale and green ; 

2. And dare we to this fancy give, 

That had the wild oat not been sown, 
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 
The grain by which a man may live ? 



3. Or, if we held the doctrine sound 

For life outliving heats of youth, 
Yet who would preach it as a truth 
To those that eddy round and round ? 

4. Hold thou the good ; define it well : 

For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark, and be 
Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 

LIV. 



We trust for 
the best, but 
weakly and 
blindly. 



0, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 



That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroy 'd, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete ; 



That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire, 

Or but subserves another's gain. 



IN MEMORIAM 71 

4. Behold, we know not anything ; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last— far off —at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring. 

5. So runs my dream : but what am I ? 

An infant crying in the night; 
An infant crying for the light; 
And with no language but a cry. 



LV. 

not en S uffice es *• ^he w i sn > tnat °^ tne living whole 

No life may fail beyond the grave, 
Derives it not from what we have 
The likest God within the soul ? 

2. Are God and Nature then at strife, 

That Nature lends such evil dreams ? 
So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life, 

3. That I, considering everywhere 

Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
And finding that of fifty seeds 
She often brings but one to bear, 

4. I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

5. I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 

And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 
And faintly trust the larger hope. 



72 



IN MEMOKIAM 



LVI. 



He despairs of 
ever under- 
standing the 
reason and 
meaning of 
life. 



"So careful of the type?" but no. 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, ' A thousand types are gone : 

I care for nothing, all shall go. 



2. "Thou makest thine appeal to me: 

I bring to life, I bring to death ; 
The spirit does but mean the breath : 
I know no more." And he, shall he, 

3. Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 

Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, 
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 

4. Who trusted God was love indeed 

And love Creation's final law— 
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 
With ravin, shriek 'd against his creed— 

5. Who loved, who suffer 'd countless ills, 

Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust, 
Or seal'd within the iron hills? 

6. No more ? A monster then, a dream, 

A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
That tare each other in their slime, 
Were mellow music match 'd with him. 



life as futile, then, as frail! 

for thy^ voice to soothe and bless ! 

What hop'e of answer, or redress? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 



IN MEMORIAM 
LVII. 



73 



A gloomy- 
calm after the 
storm. His 
love abides. 



Unwilling to 
accept his 
grief and 
doubts as final, 
he contem- 
plates singing 
in another 
strain. 



1. Peace ; come away : the song of woe 

Is after all an earthly song : 
Peace ; come away : we do him wrong 
To sing so wildly : let us go. 

2. Come, let us go : your cheeks are pale ; 

But half my life I leave behind : 
Methinks my friend is richly shrined; 
But I shall pass ; my work will fail. 

3. Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 

One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 
That ever look'd with human eyes. 

4. I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 

Eternal greetings to the dead ; 
And "Ave, Ave, Ave," said, 
"Adieu, adieu," for evermore. 

LVIII. 

1. In those sad words I took farewell : 

Like echoes in sepulchral halls, 
As drop by drop the water falls 
In vaults and catacombs, they fell ; 

2. And, falling, idly broke the peace 

Of hearts that beat from day to day, 
Half-conscious of their dying clay, 
And those cold crypts where they shall 
cease. 

3. The high Muse answer 'd: "Wherefore 

grieve 
Thy brethren with a. fruitless tear? 
Abide a little longer here, 
And thou shalt take a nobler leave." 



n 



IN MEMORIAM 



Section VI. Speculations and Dreams : Quieter Moods 
Illumined by Gleams of Hope and Faith 

LIX. 



A prayer that 
Sorrow may 
calm him, 
making him 
wise and good. 



1. Sorrow, wilt thou live with me 

No casual mistress, but a wife, 
My bosom-friend and half of life ; 
As I confess it needs must be ? 



2. Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood, 

Be sometimes lovely like a bride, 
And put thy harsher moods aside, 
If thou wilt have me wise and good. 

3. My centred passion cannot move, 

Nor will it lessen from to-day ; 
But 111 have leave at times to play 
As with the creature of my love ; 

4. And set thee forth, for thou art mine, 

With so much hope for years to come, 
That, howsoe'er I know thee, some 
Could hardly tell what name were thine. 

LX. 



He thinks of 
Arthur in 
Heaven as of 
some one far 
above him in 



He past ; a soul of nobler tone : 

My spirit loved and loves him yet, 
Like some poor girl whose heart is 

On one whose rank exceeds her own. 



2. He mixing with his proper sphere, 

She finds the baseness of her lot, 
Half jealous of she knows not what, 
And envying all that meet him there. 



IN MEMOEIAM 



75 



The little village looks forlorn ; 

She sighs amid her narrow days, 
Moving about the household ways, 

In that dark house where she was born. 



Though he 
himself he un- 
worthy, his 
love is worthy. 



4. The foolish neighbors come and go, 

And tease her till the day draws by : 
At night she weeps, ' ' How vain am I ! 
How should he love a thing so low?" 

LXI. 

1. If, in thy second state sublime, 

Thy ransom 'd reason change replies 
With all the circle of the wise, 
The perfect flower of human time ; 

2. And if thou cast thine eyes below, 

How dimly character 'd and slight, 
How dwarf 'd a growth of cold and 
night, 
How blanch 'd with darkness must I grow! 



Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, 

Where thy first form was made a man ; 
I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can 

The soul of Shakespeare love thee more. 

LXIL 



He does not 
wish his 
earthly loss to 
mar Arthur's 
happiness. 



Tho' if an eye that's downward cast 

Could make thee somewhat blench or 

fail, 
Then be my love an idle tale, 

And fading legend of the past ; 



2. And thou, as one that once declined, 

When he was little more than boy, 
On some unworthy heart with joy, 
But lives to wed an equal mind ; 



76 



IN MEMOKIAM 



Such consid- 
eration as he 
has for a horse 
or dog, he 
hcpes that 
Arthur may 
have for him. 



And breathes a novel world, the while 
His other passion wholly dies, 
Or in the light of deeper eyes 

Is matter for a flying smile. 

LXIII. 

Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven, 

And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 

In its assumptions up to heaven ; 

And I am so much more than these 

As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
And yet I spare them sympathy, 

And I would set their pains at ease. 

So mayst thou watch me where I weep, 
As, unto vaster motions bound, 
The circuits of thine orbit round 

A higher height, a deeper deep. 



,As the great 
man remem- 
bers the friend 
of his obscur- 
ity, may Ar- 
thur remember 
him. 



LXIV. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been, 
As some divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began 

And on a simple village green ; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 

And grapples with his evil star ; 



Who makes by force his merit known 
And lives, to clutch the golden keys, 
To mould a mighty state's decrees, 

And shape the whisper of the throne ; 



IN MEMOBIAM 



77 



4. And, moving up from high to higher, 

Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope, 
The centre of a world's desire. 

5. Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 

When all his active powers are still, 
A distant dearness in the hill, 
A secret sweetness in the stream, 

6. The limit of his narrower fate, 

While yet beside its vocal springs 
He play'd at counsellors and kings, 
With one that was his earliest mate; 

7. Who ploughs with pain his native lea 

And reaps the labor of his hands, 
Or in the furrow musing stands : 
'Does my old friend remember me?' 



LXV. 



There is com- 
fort in the 
thought that 
the friendship 
which is a 
help to himself 
may also be 
a help to 
Arthur. 



2. 



Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt; 

I lull a fancy trouble-tost 

With "Love's too precious to be lost, 
A little grain shall not be spilt." 

And in that solace can I sing, 

Till out of painful phases wrought 
There flutters up a happy thought, 

Self-balanced on a lightsome wing : 



Since we deserved the name of friends, 
And thine effect so lives in me, 
A part of mine may live in thee 

And move thee on to noble ends. 



78 



IN MEMORIAM 

LXVI. 



His great sor- 1 
row has taught 
him to find a 
cheerfulness 
in little 
things. 



2. 



3. 



You thought my heart too far diseased; 
You wonder when my fancies play 
To find me gay among the gay, 

Like one with any trifle pleased. 

The shade by which my life was crost, 
Which makes a desert in the mind, 
Has made me kindly with my kind, 

And like to him whose sight is lost ; 

Whose feet are guided thro' the land, 

Whose jest among his friends is free, 
Who takes the children on his knee, 

And winds their curls about his hand : 



4. He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
For pastime, dreaming of the sky ; 
His inner day can never die, 
His night of loss is always there. 

LXVII. 



Night- 
thoughts. 



1. When on my bed the moonlight falls, 

I know that in thy place of rest 
By that broad water of the west, 
There comes a glory on the walls: 

2. Thy marble bright in dark appears, 

As slowly steals a silver flame 

Along the letters of thy name, 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

3. The mystic glory swims away; 

From off my bed the moonlight dies ; 
And closing eaves of wearied eyes 
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray : 



IN MEMORIAM 



79 



4. And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast, 
And in the dark church like a ghost 
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 



LXVIII. 



A troubled 
dream. 



1. When in the down I sink my head, 

Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my 

breath ; 
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not 
Death, 
Nor can I dream of thee as dead. 



2. I walk as ere I walk'd forlorn, 

When all our path was fresh with dew, 
And all the bugle breezes blew 
Reveillee to the breaking morn. 

3. But what is this ? I turn about, 

I find a trouble in thine eye, 
Which makes me sad I know not why, 
Nor can my dream resolve the doubt : 

4. But ere the lark hath left the lea 

I wake, and I discern the truth; 
It is the trouble of my youth 
That foolish sleep transfers to thee. 

LXIX. 



A dream in 
which he sees 
his own 
experience 
reflected. 



I dream 'd there would be Spring no more, 
That Nature 's ancient power was lost : 
The streets were black with smoke and 
frost, 

They chatter 'd trifles at the door. 



80 IN MEMOEIAM 

2. I wander 'd from the noisy town, 

I found a wood with thorny boughs ; 
I took the thorns to bind my brows, 
I wore them like a civic crown. 

3. I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 

From youth and babe and hoary hairs ; 
They call'd me in the public squares 
The fool that wears a crown of thorns. 

4. They call'd me fool, they call'd me child: 

I found an angel of the night; 
The voice was low, the look was bright ; 
He look'd upon my crown and smiled. 

5. He reach 'd the glory of a hand, 

That seem'd to touch it into leaf: 
The voice was not the voice of grief, 
The words were hard to understand. 



LXX. 

£ he t^ a l r ii™ e 1- I cannot see the features right, 

in tne gloom. ° . 7 

When on the gloom I strive to paint 
The face I know ; the hues are faint 
And mix with hollow masks of night ; 

2. Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 

A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
A hand that points, and palled shapes 
In shadowy thoroughfares of thought ; 

3. And crowds that stream from yawning 

doors, 
And shoals of pucker 'd faces drive; 
Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 
And lazy lengths on boundless shores; 



IN MEMOEIAM 



81 



Ee rejoices 
over a happy 
dream, and 
longs for 
other and 
more vivid 
dreams. 



Till all at once beyond the will 
I hear a wizard music roll, 
And thro ' a lattice on the soul 

Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 

LXXI. 

Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 
And madness, thou hast forged at last 
A night-long present of the past 

In which we went thro' summer France. 

2. Hadst thou such credit with the soul ? 

Then bring an opiate trebly strong, 
Drug down the blindfold sense of 
wrong, 
That so my pleasure may be whole ; 

3. While now we talk as once we talk'd 

Of men and minds, the dust of change, 
The days that grow to something 
strange, 
In walking as of old we walk'd 

4. Beside the river's wooded reach, 

The fortress, and the mountain ridge, 
The cataract flashing from the bridge, 
The breaker breaking on the beach. 

Section VII. Arthur's Death-day Suggests the Transi- 

toriness of llfe and fame : moods of 

Uncertainty and Self-depreciation 

LXXII. 



A gloomy 
anniversary, 
Arthur's 
death-day. 



1. Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 

And howlest, issuing out of night, 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 
And lash with storm the streaming pane ? 



82 IN MEMOEIAM 

2. Day, when my crown 'd estate begun 

To pine in that reverse of doom, 
Which sicken 'd every living bloom, 
And blurr'd the splendor of the sun; 

3. Who usherest in the dolorous hour 

With thy quick tears that make the 

rose 
Pull sideways, and the daisy close 
Her crimson fringes to the shower; 

4. Who mightst have heaved a windless flame 

Up the deep east, or, whispering, 

play'd 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 
Along the hills, yet look 'd the same, 

5. As wan, as chill, as wild as now ; 

Day, mark'd as with some hideous 

crime, 
When the dark hand struck down thro' 

time, 
And cancell'd nature's best: but thou, 

6. Lift as thou mayst thy burthen 'd brows 

Thro' clouds that drench the morning 

star, 
And whirl the ungarner'd sheaf afar, 
And sow the sky with flying boughs, 

7. And up thy vault with roaring sound 

Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; 
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray, 
And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 



IN MEMORIAM 

LXXIII. 



83 



Arthur's fame 1 
is quenched, 
tho' his soul 
lives. 



So many worlds, so much to do. 

How know I what had need of thee, 
So little done, such things to be, 

For thou wert strong- as thou wert true ? 



The fame is quench 'd that I foresaw,- 

The head hath miss'd an earthly 

wreath : 
I curse not Nature, no, nor Death; 

For nothing is that errs from law. 



3. 



4. 



We pass ; the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds. 
What fame is left for human deeds 
It rests with God. 



In endless age? 



hollow wraith of dying fame, 

Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
And self-infolds the large results 

Of force that would have forged a name. 



LXXIV. 



Arthur's worth 1 
is made more 
evident by 
death, 



2. 



3. 



As sometimes in a dead man's face, 

To those that watch it more and more, 
A likeness, hardly seen before, 

Comes out — to some one of his race; 

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, and know 
Thy likeness to the wise below, 

Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see, 
And what I see I leave unsaid, 
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee. 



84 



IN MEMOMAM 



LXXV. 



Earthly praise ^ 
is unavailing, 
but a greater 
applause is 



I leave thy praises unexpress'd 

In verse that brings myself relief, 
And by the measure of my grief 

I leave thy greatness to be guess 'd. 



2. What practice howsoe'er expert 

In fitting aptest words to things, 
Or voice the richest-toned that sings, 
Hath power to give thee as thou wert ? 

3. I care not in these fading days 

To raise a cry that lasts not long, 
And round thee with the breeze of song 
To stir a little dust of praise. 

4. Thy leaf has perish 'd in the green, 

And, while we breathe beneath the sun, 
The world which credits what is done 
Is cold to all that might have been. 

5. So here shall silence guard thy fame ; 

But somewhere, out of human view, 
Whate'er thy hands are set to do 
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. 

LXXVI. 



The poetry of 
earth is 
slight and 
fleeting. 



1. Take wings of fancy, and ascend, 
And in a moment set thy face 
Where all the starry heavens of space 
Are sharpen 'd to a needle's end; 



2. Take wings of foresight, lighten thro* 
The secular abyss to come, 
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 
Before the mouldering of a yew ; 



IN MEMORIAM 



85 



3. And if the matin songs, that woke 

The darkness of our planet, last, 
Thine own shall wither in the vast 
Ere half the lifetime of an oak. 

4. Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 

With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain ; 
And what are they when these remain 
The ruin'd shells of hollow towers? 

LXXVII 



Though these 
lines will not 
endure, it is 
sweet to sing. 



1. What hope is here for modern rhyme 
To him who turns a musing eye 
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie 
Foreshorten 'd in the tract of time? 



2. These mortal lullabies of pain 

May bind a book, may line a box, 
May serve to curl a maiden 's locks ; 
Or when a thousand moons shall wane 

3. A man upon a stall may find, 

And, passing, turn the page that tells 
A grief, then changed to something 
else, 
Sung by a long-forgotten mind. 



But what of that ? My darken 'd ways 
Shall ring with music all the same ; 
To breathe my loss is more than fame, 

To utter love more sweet than praise. 



CYCLE III. HOPE AND GROWING FAITH 

Section VIII. Moods of Calm, the Outgrowth of Quiet 
Suggestions, Cheerful Recollections, and Spir- 
itual Communion 

LXXVI1I. 



As Christmas 
with its wont- 
ed festivities 
returns again, 
there is no 
sign of grief, 
hut grief 
remains. 



Again at Christmas did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth 
The silent snow possess 'd the earth, 

And calmly fell our Christmas-eve. 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
No wing of wind the region swept, 
But over all things brooding slept 

The quiet sense of something lost. 

As in the winters left behind, 

Again our ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace, 

And dance and song and hoodman-blind. 

Who show'd a token of distress? 

No single tear, no mark of pain : 
sorrow, then can sorrow wane ? 

grief, can grief be changed to less ? 

O last regret, regret can die! 

No— mixt with all this mystic frame, 
Her deep relations are the same, 

But with long use her tears are dry. 

LXXIX. 



To his hrother, ^ 
Charles : an 
explanation. 



"More than my brothers are to me," — 
Let this not vex thee, noble heart ! 
I know thee of what force thou art 

To hold the costliest love in fee. 
86 



IN MEMORIAM 



87 



2. But thou and I are one in kind, 

As moulded like in Nature's mint; 
And hill and wood and field did print 
The same sweet forms in either mind. 

3. For us the same cold streamlet curl'd 

Thro' all his eddying coves; the same 
All winds that roam the twilight came 
In whispers of the beauteous world. 

4. At one dear knee we proffer 'd vows, 

One lesson from one book we learn 'd, 
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd 
To black and brown on kindred brows. 

5. And so my wealth resembles thine, 

But he was rich where I was poor, 
And he supplied my want the more 
As his unlikeness fitted mine. 



LXXX. 



It is a help to ]_ 
him to think 
how Arthur 
would have 
borne a sim- 
ilar grief. 



If any vague desire should rise, 

That holy Death ere Arthur died 
Had moved me kindly from his side, 

And dropt the dust on tearless eyes ; 



2. Then fancy shapes, as fancy can, 

The grief my loss in him had wrought, 
A grief as deep as life or thought, 
But stay'd in peace with God and man. 



I make a picture in the brain ; 

I hear the sentence that he speaks ; 

He bears the burthen of the weeks, 
But turns his burthen into gain. 



88 



IN MEMOKIAM 



4. His credit thus shall set me free ; 

And, influence-rich to soothe and save, 
Unused example from the grave 
Reach out dead hands to comfort me. 

LXXXI. 



Sudden gain 
loss. 



1. Could I have said while he was here, 

' ' My love shall now no further range ; 
There cannot come a mellower change, 
For now is love mature in ear." 



2. Love, then, had hope of richer store : 

What end is here to my complaint? 
This haunting whisper makes me faint, 
"More years had made me love thee more." 

3. But Death returns an answer sweet: 

"My sudden frost was sudden gain. 
And gave all ripeness to the grain 
It might have drawn from after-heat." 

LXXXII. 



His one feud 
with Death. 



1. I wage not any feud with Death 

For changes wrought on form and 

face ; 
No lower life that earth's embrace 
May breed with him can fright my faith. 

2. Eternal process moving on, 

From state to state the spirit walks ; 
And these are but the shatter 'd stalks 
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. 

3. Nor blame I Death, because he bare 

The use of virtue out of earth: 
I know transplanted human worth 
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. 



IN MEMORIAM 



89 



4. For this alone on Death I wreak 

The wrath that garners in my heart ; 
He put our lives so far apart 
We cannot hear each other speak. 

LXXXIII 



An invocation 
to the spring 
which brings 
new hope. 



2. 



Dip down upon the northern shore, 
sweet new-year delaying long ; 
Thou doest expectant nature wrong ; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place? 
Can trouble live with April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons ? 



3. Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 

The little speedwell's darling blue, 
Deep tulips clash 'd with fiery dew, 
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire. 

4. thou, new-year, delaying long, 

Delayest the sorrow in my blood, 

That longs to burst a frozen bud 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 



LXXXIV. 



A dream of 
what might 
have been. 



When I contemplate all alone 

The life that had been thine below, 
And fix my thoughts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have grown, 



2. I see thee sitting crown 'd with good, 
A central warmth diffusing bliss 
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss. 
On all the branches of thy blood ; 



90 IN MEMORIAM 

3. Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; 

For now the day was drawing on, 
When thou shouldst link thy life with 
one 
Of mine own house, and boys of thine 

4. Had babbled "Uncle" on my knee; 

But that remorseless iron hour 
Made cypress of her orange flower, 
Despair of hope, and earth of thee. 

5. I seem to meet their least desire, 

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. 
I see their unborn faces shine 
Beside the never-lighted fire. 

6. I see myself an honor 'd guest, 

Thy partner in the flowery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk, 
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; 

7. While now thy prosperous labor fills 

The lips of men with honest praise, 
And sun by sun the happy days 
Descend below the golden hills. 

8. With promise of a morn as fair ; 

And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct, by paths of growing powers, 
To reverence and the silver hair ; 

9. Till slowly worn her earthly robe, 

Her lavish mission richly wrought, 
Leaving great legacies of thought, 
Thy spirit should fail from off the globe ; 

10. What time mine own might also flee, 

As link'd with thine in love and fate, 
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 
To the other shore, involved in thee, 



IN MEMORIAM 



91 



11. Arrive at last the blessed goal, 

And he that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand, 
And take us as a single soul. 

12. What reed was that on which I leant ? 

Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 
The low beginnings of content? 



LXXXV. 



The poet re- 
plies to three 
questions of 
Prof. Lushing-- 
ton, and while 
reserving his 
first friend- 
ship as his 
hest, offers 
Prof. L. a 
friendship 
second hut no 
less real. 



This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
I felt it, when I sorrow 'd most, 
'T is better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have loved at all— 

true in word, and tried in deed, 
Demanding, so to bring relief 
To this which is our common grief, 

What kind of life is that I lead ; 



And whether trust in things above 

Be dimm'd of sorrow, or sustain 'd; 
And whether love for him have drain 'd 

My capabilities of love ; 

Your words have virtue such as draws 

A faithful answer from the breast, . 
Thro' light reproaches, half exprest, 

And loyal unto kindly laws. 



My blood an even tenor kept, 

Till on mine ear this message falls, 
That in Vienna's fatal walls 

God's finger touch 'd him, and he slept. 



92 IN MEMORIAM 

6. The great Intelligences fair 

That range above our mortal state, 
In circle round the blessed gate, 
Received and gave him welcome there ; 

7. And led him thro' the blissful climes, 

And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
All knowledge that the sons of flesh 
Shall gather in the cycled times. 

8. But I remain 'd, whose hopes were dim, 

Whose life, whose thoughts w T ere little 

worth, 
To wander on a darken 'd earth, 
Where all things round me breathed of him. 

9. friendship, equal-poised control, 

O heart, with kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 
solemn ghost, crowned soul ! 

10. Yet none could better know than I, 

How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands 
By which we dare to live or die. 

11. Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel, tho ' left alone, 
His being working in mine own, 

The footsteps of his life in mine ; 

12. A life that all the Muses deck'd 

With gifts of grace, that might express 
All-comprehensive tenderness, 
All-subtilizing intellect : 

13. And so my passion hath not swerved 

To works of weakness, but I find 
An image comforting the mind, 
And in my grief a strength reserved. 



IN MEMOEIAM 



93 



14. Likewise the imaginative woe, 

That loved to handle spiritual strife, 
Diffused the shock thro' all my life, 
But in the present broke the blow. 

15. My pulses therefore beat again 

For other friends that once I met ; 
Nor can it suit me to forget 
The mighty hopes that make us men. 

16. I woo your love : I count it crime 

To mourn for any overmuch ; 
I, the divided half of such 
A friendship as had master 'd Time ; 

17. Which masters Time indeed, and is 

Eternal, separate from fears : 
The all-assuming months and years 
Can take no part away from this : 

18. But Summer on the steaming floods, 

And Spring that swells the narrow 

brooks, 
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 
That gather in the waning woods, 

19. And every pulse of wind and wave 

Recalls, in change of light or gloom, 
My old affection of the tomb, 
And my prime passion in the grave. 

20. My old affection of the tomb, 

A part of stillness, yearns to speak : 
"Arise, and get thee forth and seek 
A friendship for the years to come. 

21. "I watch thee from the quiet shore; 

Thy spirit up to mine can reach, 
But in dear words of human speech 
We two communicate no more.' , 



94 IN MEMORIAM 



22. And I, "Can clouds of nature stain 

The starry clearness of the free ? 
How is it? Canst thou feel for me 
Some painless sympathy with pain?" 

23. And lightly does the whisper fall: 

" 'T is hard for thee to fathom this; 
I triumph in conclusive bliss, 
And that serene result of all." 

24. So hold I commerce with the dead; 

Or so methinks the dead would say; 
Or so shall grief with symbols play 
And pining life be fancy-fed. 

25. Now looking to some settled end, 

That these things pass, and I shall 

prove 
A meeting somewhere, love with love, 
I crave your pardon, O my friend ; 

26. If not so fresh, with love as true, 

I, clasping brother-hands, aver 
I could not, if I would, transfer 
The whole I felt for him to you. 

27. For which be they that hold apart 

The promise of the golden hours? 
First love, first friendship, equal 
powers, 
That marry with the virgin heart. 

28. Still mine, that cannot but deplore, 

That beats within a lonely place, 
That yet remembers his embrace, 
But at his footstep leaps no more, 



IN MEMORIAM 



95 



29. My heart, tho ' widow 'd, may not rest 

Quite in the love of what is gone, 
But seeks to beat in time with one 
That warms another living breast. 

30. Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 

Knowing the primrose yet is dear, 
The primrose of the later year, 
As not unlike to that of Spring. 

LXXXVI. 



Calm after 
storm. 



1. Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 

That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of evening over brake and bloom 
And meadow, slowly breathing bare 



3. 



The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro' all the dewy-tassell ? d wood, 
And shadowing down the horned flood 

In ripples, fan my brows and blow 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh 

The full new life that feeds thy breath 
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and 
Death, 

111 brethren, let the fancy fly 



4. Prom belt to belt of crimson seas 

On leagues of odor streaming far, 
To where in yonder orient star 
A hundred spirits whisper " Peace.' ' 

LXXXVII. 



Reminiscences 
of college 
days. 



I past beside the reverend walls 

In which of old I wore the gown ; 
I roved at random thro' the town, 

And saw the tumult of the halls ; 



96 IN MEMOKIAM 

2. And heard once more in college fanes 

The storm their high-built organs 

make, 
And thunder-music, rolling, shake 
The prophet blazon 'd on the panes ; 

3. And caught once more the distant shout, 

The measured pulse of racing oars 
Among the willows ; paced the shores 
And many a bridge, and all about 

4. The same gray flats again, and felt 

The same, but not the same ; and last 
Up that long walk of limes I past 
To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 

5. Another name was on the door : 

I linger 'd; all within was noise 
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys 
That crash 'd the glass and beat the floor ; 

6. Where once we hold debate, a band 

Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
And labor, and the changing mart, 
And all the framework of the land ; 

7. When one would aim an arrow fair, 

But send it slackly from the string ; 
And one would pierce an outer ring, 
And one an inner, here and there ; 

8. And last the master-bowman, he, 

Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 
The rapt oration flowing free 

9. From point to point, with power and grace 

And music in the bounds of law, 
To those conclusions when we saw 
The God within him light his face, 



IN MEMORIAM 



97 



10. And seem to lift the form, and glow 
In azure orbits heavenly- wise ; 
And over those ethereal eyes 
The bar of Michael Angelo ? 



To the night- 
ingale: joy in 
grief. 



His thought 
goes back and 
dwells happily 
on his life 
with Arthur 
at Somersby. 



LXXXVIIL 

1. Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, 

Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks, 

tell me where the senses mix, 
tell me where the passions meet, 

2. Whence radiate : fierce extremes employ 

Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, 
And in the midmost heart of grief 
Thy passion clasps a secret joy: 

3. And I — my harp would prelude woe — 

1 cannot all command the strings ; 
The glory of the sum of things 

Will flash along the chords and go. 

LXXXIX. 

1. Witch-elms that counterchange the floor 

Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright, 
And thou, with all thy breadth and 
height 
Of foliage, towering sycamore ; 

2. How often, hither wandering down, 

My Arthur found your shadows fair, 
And shook to all the liberal air 
The dust and din and steam of town ! 



3. He brought an eye for all he saw ; 

He mixt in all our simple sports ; 
They pleased him, fresh from brawling 
courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 



98 IN MEMOKIAM 

4. joy to him in this retreat, 

Imrnantled in ambrosial dark, 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 
The landscape winking thro' the heat! 

5. sound to rout the brood of cares, 

The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
The gust that round the garden flew, 
And tumbled half the mellowing pears ! 

6. bliss, when all in circle drawn 

About him, heart and ear were fed 
To hear him, as he lay and read 
The Tuscan poets on the lawn : 

7. Or in the all-golden afternoon 

A guest, or happy sister, sung, 
Or here she brought the harp and 
flung 
A ballad to the brightening moon ! 

8. Nor less it pleased in livelier moods, 

Beyond the bounding hill to stray, 
And break the livelong summer day 
With banquet in the distant woods ; 

9. Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, 

Discuss 'd the books to love or hate, 
Or touch 'd the changes of the state, 
Or threaded some Socratic dream ; 

10. But if I praised the busy town, 

He loved to rail against it still, 
For "ground in yonder social mill 
We rub each other's angles down, 

11. "And merge," he said, "in form and gloss 

The picturesque of man and man." 
We tal£'d: the stream beneath us ran, 
The wine-flask lying couch 'd in moss, 



IN MEMOKIAM 



99 



12. Or cool'd within the glooming wave; 

And last, returning from afar, 
Before the crimson-circled star 
Had fallen into her father's grave, 

13. And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, 

We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail, 
And buzzings of the honeyed hours. 

XC. 



It's only a 
half hearted 
love that 
would not 
welcome hack 
the dear 
departed. 



1. He tasted love with half his mind, 

Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
Where nighest heaven, who first could 
fling 
This bitter seed among mankind : 



2. That could the dead, whose dying eyes 

Were closed with wail, resume their 

life, 
They would but find in child and wife 
An iron welcome when they rise. 

3. 'T was well, indeed, when warm with wine, 

To pledge them with a kindly tear, 
To talk them o'er, to wish them here, 
To count their memories half divine ; 

4. But if they came who past away, 

Behold their brides in other hands ; 
The hard heir strides about their lands 
And will not yield them for a day. 



5. Yea, tho ' their sons were none of these, 

Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
Confusion worse than death, and shake 
The pillars of domestic peace. 

LOFC. 



100 



IN MEMORIAM 



6. Ah, dear, but come thou back to me : 

Whatever change the years have 

wrought, 
I find not yet one lonely thought 
That cries against my wish for thee. 

XCI. 



To the spirit 
of Arthur: 
A prayer. 



1. When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 

And rarely pipes the mounted thrush, 
Or underneath the barren bush 
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; 



2. Come, wear the form by which I know 

Thy spirit in time among thy peers ; 
The hope of unaccomplished years 
Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

3. When summer's hourly-mellowing change 

May breathe, with many roses sweet, 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat 
That ripple round the lonely grange, 

4. Come; not in watches of the night, 

But where the sunbeam brooclethwarm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form, 
And like a finer light in light. 

XCII. 



The poet puts 
no faith in 
ghostly ap- 
paritions. 



1. If any vision should reveal 

Thy likeness, I might count it vain 
As but the canker of the brain ; 
Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal 



2. To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 
Of memory murmuring the past. 



IN MEM0R1AM 



101 



3. Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view 

A fact within the coming year ; 
And tho' the months, revolving near, 
Should prove the phantom-warning true, 

4. They might not seem thy prophecies, 

But spiritual presentiments, 
And such refraction of events 
As often rises ere they rise. 

XCIII. 



He hopes that 1 
soul may com- 
mune with 
soul. 



I shall not see thee. Dare I say 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land 

Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay? 



2. No visual shade of some one lost, 

But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb; 
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

3. 0, therefore from thy sightless range 

With gods in unconjectured bliss, 
0, from the distance of the abyss 
Of tenfold-complicated change, 

4. Descend, and touch, and enter ; hear 

The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 
My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 

XCIV. 



He is sadly 
conscious that 
only with the 
pure in heart 
will the dead 
commune. 



How pure at heart and sound in head, 
With what divine affections bold, 
Should be the man whose thought 
would hold 

An hour's communion with the dead. 



102 



IN MEMORIAM 



In vain shalt thou, or any, call 

The spirits from their golden day, 
Except, like them, thou too canst say, 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 
Imaginations calm and fair, 
The memory like a cloudless air, 

The conscience as a sea at rest ; 

But when the heart is full of din, 

And doubt beside the portal waits, 
They can but listen at the gates, 

And hear the household jar within. 

xcv. 



A happy even- 
ing, followed 
by a reverie 
during which 
Arthur's self 
appeared to 
him in a vision 
and passed 
with the com- 
ing of dawn. 



By night we linger 'd on the lawn, 

For underfoot the herb was dry; 
And genial warmth ; and o'er the sky 

The silvery haze of summer drawn ; 

And calm that let the tapers burn 

Unwavering: not a cricket chirr 'd: 
The brook alone far-off was heard, 

And on the board the fluttering urn. 



And bats went round in fragrant skies, 
And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes ; 



"While now we sang old songs that peal'd 
From knoll to knoll, where, couch 'd at 

ease, 
The white kine glimmer 'd, and the 
trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field. 



IN MEMORIAM 103 

5. But when those others, one by one, 

Withdrew themselves from me and 

night, 
And in the house light after light 
Went out, and I was all alone, 

6. A hunger seized my heart ; I read 

Of that glad year which once had been, 
In those fallen leaves which kept their 
green, 
The noble letters of the dead. 

7. And strangely on the silence broke 

The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 
To test his worth ; and strangely spoke 

8. The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell 

On doubts that drive the coward back, 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 
Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

9. So word by word, and line by line, 

The dead man touch 'd me from the 

past, 
And all at once it seem'd at last 
The living soul was flash 'd on mine, 

10. And mine in this was wound, and whirl 'd 

About empyreal heights of thought. 
And came on that which is, and caught 
The deep pulsations of the world, 

11. Ionian music measuring out 

The steps of Time— the shocks of 

Chance— 
The blows of Death. At length my 

trance 
Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt. 



104: IN MEMORIAM 

12. Vague words ! but ah, how hard to frame 

In matter-moulded forms of speech, 
Or even for intellect to reach 
Thro ' memory that which I became : 

13. Till now the doubtful dusk reveal 'd 

The knolls once more where, couch 'd 

at ease, 
The white kine glimmer 'd, and the 

trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field ; 

14. And suck'd from out the distant gloom 

A breeze began to tremble o'er 
The large leaves of the sycamore, 
And fluctuate all the still perfume, 

15. And, gathering freshlier overhead, 

Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and 

swung 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 
The lilies to and fro, and said, 

16. "The dawn, the dawn," and died away; 

And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixt their dim lights, like life and 
death, 
To broaden into boundless day. 



XCVI. 

of he doubt iSt17 ■*• ^ 0U Say > ^ Ut Wit ^ n ° t0UCn °f scorn > 

Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue 

eyes , 
Are tender over drowning flies, 
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 



IN MEMOKIAM 



105 



2. I know not : one indeed I knew 

In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touch 'd a jarring lyre at first, 
But ever strove to make it true : 

3. Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 

At last he beat his music out. 
There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

4. He fought his doubts and gather 'd 

strength, 
He would not make his judgment 

blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them : thus he came at length 

5* To find a stronger faith his own ; 

And Power was with him in the night, 
Which makes the darkness and the 
light, 
And dwells not in the light alone, 

6. But in the darkness and the cloud, 
As over Sinai's peaks of old, 
While Israel made their gods of gold, 
Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 

XCVII. 

1. My love has talk'd with rocks and trees; 
Ju'ciism!! 8 He finds on misty mountain-ground 

His own vast shadow glory-crown 'd; 
He sees himself in all he sees. 

2. Two partners of a married life— 

I look'd on these and thought of thee 
In vastness and in mystery, 
And of my spirit as of a wife. 



106 



IN MEMOKIAM 



3. These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 

Their hearts of old have beat in tune, 
Their meetings made December June, 
Their every parting was to die. 

4. Their love has never past away ; 

The days she never can forget 
Are earnest that he loves her yet, 
Whate'er the faithless people say. 

5. Her life is lone, he sits apart ; 

He loves her yet, she will not weep, 
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep 
He seems to slight her simple heart. 

6. He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 

He reads the secret of the star, 
He seems so near and yet so far, 
He looks so cold : she thinks him kind. 

7. She keeps the gift of years before, 

A wither 'd violet is her bliss: 
She knows not what his greatness is, 
For that, for all, she loves him more. 

8. For him she plays, to him she sings 

Of early faith and plighted vows ; 
She knows but matters of the house, 
And he, he knows a thousand things. 

9. Her faith is fixt and cannot move, 

She darkly feels him great and wise, 
She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 
"I cannot understand: I love." 

XCVIII. 



To his brother, 
who is about 
to start for a 
tour on the 
continent. 



You leave us : you will see the Rhine, 
And those fair hills I sail'd below, 
When I was there with him ; and go 

By summer belts of wheat and vine 



IN MEMOKIAM 107 

2. To where he breathed his latest breath, 

That city. All her splendor seems 
No livelier than the wisp that gleams 
On Lethe in the eyes of Death. 

3. Let her great Danube rolling fair 

Enwind ner isles, unmark'd of me: 
I have not seen, I will not see 
Vienna ; rather dream that there, 

4. A treble darkness, Evil haunts 

The birth, the bridal; friend from 

friend 
Is oftener parted, fathers bend 
Above more graves, a thousand wants 

5. Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey 

By each cold hearth, and sadness flings 
Her shadow on the blaze of kings. 
And yet myself have heard him say 

6. That not in any mother town 

With statelier progress to and fro 
The double tides of chariots flow 
By park and suburb under brown 

7. Of lustier leaves ; nor more content, 

He told me, lives in any crowd, 
When all is gay with lamps, and loud 
With sport and song, in booth and tent, 

8. Imperial halls, or open plain; 

And wheels the circled dance, and 

breaks 
The rocket molten into flakes 
Of crimson or in emerald rain. 



108 



IN MEMOEIAM 



Section IX. Tender Memories : Pensive Moods Lighted 
up by a Vision of the Future 



The poet's 
mood of sad- 
ness puts him 
in sympathy 
with all 
mourners on 
this day. 



XCIX. 

Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
So loud with voices of the birds, 
So thick with lowings of the herds, 

Day, when I lost the flower of men ; 

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red 

On yon swollen brook that bubbles fast 
By meadows breathing of the past, 

And woodlands holy to the dead; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
A song that slights the coming care, 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A fiery finger on the leaves ; 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 
To myriads on 11k' genial earth, 
Memories of bridal, or of birth, 

And unto myriads more, of death. 

0, wheresoever those may be, 

Betwixt the slumber of the poles. 
To-day they count as kindred souls ; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 



C. 



He dwells upon ^ 
the happy 
associations 
which cluster 
around the 
old home. 



I climb the hill : from end to end 
Of all the landscape underneath, 
I find no place that does not breathe 

Some gracious memory of my friend; 



IN MEMORIAM 



109 



2. No gray old grange, or lonely fold, 

Or low morass and whispering reed, 
Or simple stile from mead to mead, 
Or sheep walk up the windy wold; 

3. Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw 

That hears the latest linnet trill, 
Nor quarry trench 'd along the hill 
And haunted by the wrangling daw ; 

4. Nor runlet tinkling from the rock, 

Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 
To left and right thro' meadowy 
curves, 
That feed the mothers of the flock; 

5. But each has pleased a kindred eye, 

And each reflects a kindlier day ; 
And, leaving these, to pass away, 
I think once more he seems to die. 



CI. 



5ivin egr the a4 1* Umvatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, 
old home. The tender blossom flutter down, 

Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 
This maple burn itself away; 

2. Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 

Ray round with flames her disk of seed, 
And many a rose-carnation feed 
With summer spice the humming air ; 

3. Unloved, by many a sandy bar, 

The brook shall babble down the plain, 
At noon or when the Lesser Wain 
Is twisting round the polar star ; 



110 



IN MEMORIAM 



4. Uncared for, gird the windy grove, 

And flood the haunts of hern 

crake, 
Or into silver arrows break 
The sailing moon in creek and cove; 



and 



5. Till from the garden and the wild 

A fresh association blow, 
And year by year the landscape grow 
Familiar to the stranger's child; 

6. As year by year the laborer tills 

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
And year by year our memory fades 
From all the circle of the hills. 



CIL 



Two different 
elements of 
sadness blend 
and become 
one regret. 



We leave the well-beloved place 

Where first we gazed upon the sky; 
The roofs that heard our earliest cry 

Will shelter one of stranger race. 



2. We go, but ere we go from home, 

As down the garden-walks I move, 
Two spirits of a diverse love 
Contend for loving masterdom. 

3. One whispers, "Here thy boyhood sung 

Long since its matin song, and heard 
The low love-language of the bird 
In native hazels tassel-hung." 



4. The other answers, "Yea, but here 

Thy feet have stray 'd in after hours 
With thy lost friend among the bowers, 
And this hath made them trebly dear." 



IN MEMORIAM HI 

5. These two have striven half the day, 

And each prefers his separate claim, 
Poor rivals in a losing game, 
That will not yield each other way. 

6. I turn to go: my feet are set 

To leave the pleasant fields and farms ; 
They mix in one another's arms 
To one pure image of regret. 



cm. 



The poet has ± Q n t hat last night before we went 

a dream wnicn <? T , j 

he interprets From out the doors where 1 was bred, 

happily * I dream 'd a vision of the dead, 

Which left my after-morn content. 

2. Methought I dwelt within a hall, 

And maidens with me : distant hills 
From hidden summits fed with rills 
A river sliding by the wall. 

3. The hall with harp and carol rang. 

They sang of what is wise and good 
And graceful. In the centre stood 
A statue veil'd, to which they sang; 

4. And which, tho' veil'd, was known to me, 

The shape of him I loved, and love 
For ever: then flew in a dove 
' And brought a summons from the sea : 

5. And when they learnt that I must go, 

They wept and wail'd, but led the way 
To where a little shallop lay 
At anchor in the flood below ; 



112 IN MEMORIAM 

6. And on by many a level mead, 

And shadowing bluff that made the 

banks, 
"We glided winding under ranks 
Of iris and the golden reed ; 

7. And still as vaster grew the shore 

And roll'd the floods in grander space, 
The maidens gather 'd strength and 
grace 
And presence, lordlier than before; 

8. And I myself, who sat apart 

And watch 'd them, w T ax'd in every 

limb; 
I felt the thews of Anakim, 
The pulses of a Titan 's heart ; 

9. As one would sing the death of war, 

And one would chant the history 
Of that great race which is to be, 
And one the shaping of a star; 

10. Until the forward-creeping tides 

Began to foam, and we to draw 
From deep to deep, to where we saw 
A great ship lift her shining sides. 

11. The man we loved was there on deck, 

But thrice as large as man he bent 
To greet us. Up the side I went 
And fell in silence on his neck : 

12. Whereat those maidens with one mind 

Bewail'd their lot; I did them wrong: 
' 'We served thee here/' they said, "so 
long, ' 
And wilt thou leave us now behind ?" 



IN MEMOKIAM 113 

13. So rapt I was, they could not win 

An answer from my lips, but he 
Eep lying, "Enter likewise ye, 
And go with us:" they enter 'd in. 

14. And while the wind began to sweep 

A music out of sheet and shroud, 
We steer 'd her toward a crimson cloud 
That landlike slept along the deep. 



CYCLE IV. PEACE AND TRIUMPHANT LOVE 

Section X. Serene Moods Growing out of Happy 
Memories and a Perfect Faith in God and Good 



CIV. 



Christmas 
again draws 
near, but 
amid strange 
surroundings. 



1. The time draws near the birth of Christ; 

The moon is hid, the night is still ; 
A single church below the hill 
Is pealing, folded in the mist. 

2. A single peal of bells below, 

That wakens at this hour of rest 
A single murmur in the breast, 
That these are not the bells I know. 



3. Like strangers ' voices here they sound, 

In lands where not a memory strays, 
Nor landmark breathes of other days, 
But all is new unhallow 'd ground. 



CV. 



Christmas 
brings no 
gaiety; yet 
it is not 
gloomy. 



1. To-night ungather'd let us leave 

This laurel, let this holly stand ; 
We live within the stranger's land, 
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. 

2. Our father's dust is left alone 

And silent under other snows : 
There in due time the woodbine blows, 
The violet comes, but we are gone. 

3. No more shall wayward grief abuse 

The genial hour with mask and mime : 
For change of place, like growth of 
time,' 
Has broke the bond of dying use. 
114 



IN MEMORIAM 115 

4. Let cares that petty shadows east, 

By which our lives are chiefly proved, 
A little spare the night I loved, 
And hold it solemn to the past. 

5. But let no footstep beat the floor, 

Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm ; 
For who would keep an ancient form 
Thro ' which the spirit breathes no more ? 

6. Be neither song, nor game, nor feast ; 

Nor harp be touch 'd, nor flute be 

blown 
No dance, no motion, save alone 
What lightens in the lucid east 

7. Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed ; 
Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
The closing cycle rich in good. 



CVI. 



Yearly 1< Rin ° 0Ut > wild bellS ' t0 tlie Wild **&> 

Md'hope. The flying cloud, the frosty light : 

The year is dying in the night ; 
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

2. Ring out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 
Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

3. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 

For those that here we see no more ; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 
Ring in redress to all mankind. 



116 



IN MEMORIAM 



4. Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

5. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 

The faithless coldness of the times; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful 
rhymes, 
But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

6. Ring out false pride in place and blood, 

The civic slander and the spite; 
Ring in the love of truth and right, 
Ring in the common love of good. 

7. Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 
Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

8. Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 



CVII. 



Arthur's birth- 
day. stormy 
though it is, 
brings thoughts 
of cheer. 



It is the day when he was born, 
A bitter day that early sank 
Behind a purple-frosty bank 

Of vapor, leaving night forlorn. 



2. The time admits not flowers or leaves 

To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies 
The blast of North and East, and ice 
Makes daggers at the sharpen 'd eaves, 



IN MEMOEIAM 



117 



And bristles all the brakes and thorns 
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 
Above the wood which grides and 
clangs 

Its leafless ribs and iron horns 



6. 



Together, in the drifts that pass 
To darken on the rolling brine 
That breaks the coast. But fetch the 
wine, 

Arrange the board and brim the glass ; 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 
To make a solid core of heat ; 
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 

Of all things even as he were by; 

[We keep the day. With festal cheer, 
With books and music, surely we 
Will drink to him, whate 'er he be, 

And sing the songs he loved to hear. 



He determines 1 
to hold aloof 
no longer from 
his fellow 
men. 



CVIII. 

I will not shut me from my kind, 
And, lest I stiffen into stone, 
I will not eat my heart alone, 

Nor feed with sighs a passing wind: 



2. What profit lies in barren faith, 

And vacant yearning, tho' with might 
To scale the heaven 's highest height, 
Or dive below the wells of death ? 



What find I in the highest place 

But mine own phantom chanting 

hymns ? 
And on the depths of death there 
swims 
The reflex of a human face. 



118 



IN MEMOMAM 



I'll rather take what fruit may be 
Of sorrow under human skies : 
'T is held that sorrow makes us wise, 

"Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. 



CIX. 



Arthur's gifts 
of head and 
heart were 
many and 
remarkable. 



Heart-affluence in discursive talk 

From household fountains never dry; 
The critic clearness of an eye 

That saw thro' all the Muses' walk; 



2. Seraphic intellect and force 

To seize and throw the doubts of man; 
Impassion 'd logic, which outran 
The hearer in its fiery course ; 

3. High nature amorous of the good, 

But touch 'd with no ascetic gloom ; 
And passion pure in snowy bloom 
Thro' all the years of April blood; 

4. A love of freedom rarely felt, 

Of freedom in her regal seat 
Of England ; not the schoolboy heat, 
The blind hysterics of the Celt ; 

5. And manhood fused with female grace 

In such a sort, the child would twine 
A trustful hand, unask'cl, in thine, 
And find his comfort in thy face ; 



6. All these have been, and thee mine eyes 

Have look'd on : if they look'd in vain, 
My shame is greater who remain, 
Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 




ARTHUR H. HALLAM 
From the bust by Sir F. Chantry, R. A. 



IN MEMORIAM 



119 



CX. 



Arthur's in- 
fluence on all 
he met was 
wonderful. 



1. Thy converse drew us with delight, 

The men of rathe and riper years ; 
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 
Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 



2. On thee the loyal-hearted hung, 

The proud was half disarm 'd of pride, 
Nor cared the serpent at thy side 
To flicker with his double tongue. 

3. The stern were mild when thou wert by, 

The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 
Was soften 'd, and he knew not why; 

4. While I, thy nearest, sat apart, 

And felt thy triumph was as mine; 
And loved them more, that they were 
thine, 
The graceful tact, the Christian art; 

5. Nor mine the sweetness or the skill, 

But mine the love that will not tire, 
And, born of love, the vague desire 
That spurs an imitative will. 

CXI. 



He was abso- 
lutely genuine 
and sincere. 



1. The churl in spirit, up or down 

Along the scale of ranks, thro' all, 
To him who grasps a golden ball, 
By blood a king, at heart a clown,— 



2. The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 

His want in forms for fashion 's sake, 
Will let his coltish nature break 
At seasons thro' the gilded pale; 



120 IN MEMORIAM 

3. For who can always act? But he, 

To whom a thousand memories call, 
Not being less but more than all 
The gentleness he seem'd to be, 

4. Best seem'd the thing he was, and join'd 

Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as the flower 
And native growth of noble mind; 

5. Nor ever narrowness or spite, 

Or villain fancy fleeting by, 
Drew in the expression of an eye 
Where God and Nature met in light; 

6. And thus he bore without abuse 

The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan, 
And soil'd with all ignoble use. 



CXII. 



wk s 3 uni^i** 1- High wisdom holds my wisdom less, 
perfect. That I, who gaze with temperate eyes 

On glorious insufficiencies, 
Set light by narrower perfectness. 

2. But thou, that fillest all the room 

Of all my love, art reason why 
I seem to cast a careless eye 
On souls, the lesser lords of doom. 

3. For what wert thou? Some novel power 

Sprang up for ever at a touch, 
And hop*e could never hope too much, 
In watching thee from hour to hour, 



IN MEMORIAM 



121 



Large elements in order brought, 

And tracts of calm from tempest made, 
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd 

In vassal tides that follow 'd thought. 



His country 
lost much by 
his early 
•death. 



CXIII. 

'T is held that sorrow makes us wise ; 

Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 
Which not alone had guided me, 

But served the seasons that may rise ; 



2. For can I doubt, who knew thee keen 

In intellect, with force and skill 

To strive, to fashion, to fulfill — 

I doubt not what thou wouldst have been : 

3. A life in civic action warm, 

A soul on highest mission sent, 
A potent voice of Parliament, 
A pillar steadfast in the storm, 

4. Should licensed boldness gather force, 

Becoming, when the time has birth, 
A lever to uplift the earth 
And roll it in another course, 

5. With thousand shocks that come and go, 

With agonies, with energies, 
With overthrowings, and with cries, 
And undulations to and fro. 

CXIV. 



Wisdom is 
much greater 
than knowl- 
edge. 



1. Who loves not Knowledge ? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty ? May she mix 
With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 
Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 



122 



IN MEMORIAM 



2. But on her forehead sits a fire : 

She sets her forward countenance 
And leaps into the future chance, 
Submitting all things to desire. 

3. Half -grown as yet, a child, and vain- 

She cannot fight the fear of death. 
What is she, cut from love and faith, 
But some wild Pallas from the brain 

4. Of demons ? fiery-hot to burst 

All barriers in her onward race 
For power. Let her know her place ; 
She is the second, not the first. 

5. A higher hand must make her mild, 

If all be not in vain, and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 
With Wisdom, like the younger child ; 

6. For she is earthly of the mind, 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 
O friend, who earnest to thy goal 
So early, leaving me behind, 

7. I would the great world grew like thee, 

Who grewest not alone in power 
And knowledge, but by year and hour 
In reverence and in charity. 



cxv. 



With the re- 
viving spring, 
his regret for 
his friend 
revives. 



1. Now fades the last long streak of snow, 
Now burgeons every maze of quick 
About the flowering squares, and thick 
By ashen roots the violets blow. 



IN MEMORIAM 



123 



2. Now rings the woodland loud and long, 

The distance takes a lovelier hue, 
And drown 'd in yonder living blue 
The lark becomes a sightless song. 

3. Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, 

The flocks are whiter down the vale, 
And milkier every milky sail ' 
On winding stream or distant sea ; 

4. Where now the seamew pipes, or dives 

In yonder greening gleam, and fly 
The happy birds, that change their sky 
To build and brood, that live their lives 

5. From land to land ; and in my breast 

Spring wakens too, and my regret 
Becomes an April violet, 
And buds and blossoms like the rest. 

CXVI. 



With the new ^ 
spring, he finds 
that his 
yearning is 
forward rather 
than back. 



Is it, then, regret for buried time 

That keenlier in sweet April wakes, 
And meets the year, and gives and 
takes 

The colors of the crescent prime? 



Not all : the songs, the stirring air, 
The life re-orient out of dust, 
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 

In that which made the world so fair. 



3. Not all regret : the face will shine 
Upon me, while I muse alone ; 
And that dear voice, I once 
known, 
Still speak to me of me and mine : 



have 



124 



IN MEMOEIAM 



4. Yet less of sorrow lives in me 

For days of happy commune dead, 
Less yearning for the friendship fled 
Than some strong bond which is to be. 

CXVII. 



Separation will 1 
only make 
the destined 
meeting 
sweeter. 



days and hours, your work is this, 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace, 

For fuller gain of after bliss : 



That out of distance might ensue 

Desire of nearness doubly sweet, 
And unto meeting, when we meet, 

Delight a hundredfold accrue, 

For every grain of sand that runs, 

And every span of shade that steals, 
And every kiss of toothed wheels, 

And all the courses of the suns. 



Nature's evo- 
lution is 
symbolic of 
the growth 
and perfecting 
of man's 
spirit. 



CXVIII. 

Contemplate all this work of Time, 
The giant laboring in his youth; 
Nor dream of human love and truth 

As dying Nature's earth and lime; 

But trust that those we call the dead 
Are breathers of an ampler day 
For ever nobler ends. They say, 

The solid earth whereon we tread 



In tracts of fluent heat began, 

And grew to seeming-random forms, 
The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 

Till at the last arose the man ; 



IN MEMORIAM 



125 



4. Who throve and branch 'd from clime to 

clime, 
The herald of a higher race, 
And of himself in higher place, 
If so he type this work of time 

5. Within himself, from more to more ; 

Or, crown 'd with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 
That life is not as idle ore, 

6. But iron dug from central gloom, 

And heated hot with burning fears, 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 
And batter 'd with the shocks of doom 

7. To shape and use. Arise and fly 

The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
Move upward, working out the beast, 
And let the ape and tiger die. 



CXIX. 



He revisits 
the familiar 
door and is 
happy in the 
memory of 
hygone times. 



1. Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, not as one that weeps 
I come once more ; the city sleeps; 
I smell the meadow in the street : 



2. I hear a chirp of birds ; I see 

Betwixt the black fronts long-with- 
drawn 
A light-blue lane of early dawn, 
And think of early days and thee, 



3. And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, 

And bright the friendship of thine eye ; 
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh 
I take the pressure of thine hand. 



126 



IN MEMORIAM 



cxx. 



Man is not a 
mere mechan- 
ism; the soul 
Uvea* 



1. I trust I have not wasted breath: 

I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death ; 



The evening 
and morning 
star. 



2. Not only cunning casts in clay : 

Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men, 
At least to me ? I would not stay. 

3. Let him, the wiser man who springs 

Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action like the greater ape, 
But I was bom to other things. 

CXXI. 

1. Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun 

And ready, thou, to die with him, 
Thou watchest all things ever dim 
And dimmer, and a glory done : 

2. The team is loosen 'd from the wain, 

The boat is drawn upon the shore ; 
Thou listenest to the closing door, 
And life is darken 'd in the brain. 



3. Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, 

By thee the world's great work is. 

heard 
Beginning, and the wakeful bird ; 
Behind thee comes the greater light : 

4. The market boat is on the stream, 

And voices hail it from the brink ; 
Thou hear 'st the village hammer clink, 
And seest the moving of the team. 



IN MEMOKIAM 



127 



Longing for 
communion, 
soul with soul. 



5. Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name 
For what is one, the first, the last, 
Thou, like my present and my past, 
Thy place is changed ; thou art the same. 

CXXII. 

1. O, wast thou with me, dearest, then, 

While I rose up against my doom, 
And yearn 'd to burst the folded gloom, 
To bare the eternal heavens again, 

2. To feel once more, in placid awe, 

The strong imagination roll 
A sphere of stars about my soul, 
In all her motion one with law ? 

3. If thou wert with me, and the grave 

Divide us not, be with me now, 
And enter in at breast and brow, 
Till all my blood, a fuller wave, 

4. Be quicken 'd with a livelier breath, 

And like an inconsiderate boy, 
As in the former flash of joy, 
I slip the thoughts of life and death ; 

5. And all the breeze of Fancy blows, 

And every dewdrop paints a bow, 
The wizard lightnings deeply glow, 
And every thought breaks out a rose. 

CXXIIL 



In this ever- 
changing 
world the 
spiritual 
alone abides. 



1. There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 

earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
Theye where the long street roars hath 
been 
The stillness of the central sea. 



128 IN MEMOKIAM 

2. The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing 

stands ; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

3. But in my spirit will I dwell, 

And dream my dream, and hold it 

true; 
For tho ' my lips may breathe adieu, 
I cannot think the thing farewell. 

CXXIV. 



Jcende r iS>" of ^ That which we dare invoke to bless ; 
Faith. Our dearest faith; our ghastliest 

doubt ; 
He, They, One, All ; within, without ; 
The Power in darkness whom we guess ; 

2. I found Him not in world or sun, 

Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye; 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 
The petty cobwebs we have spun : 

3. If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, 

I heard a voice, "Believe no more/' 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the Godless deep ; 

4. A warmth within the breast would melt 

The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath the heart 
Stood up and answer 'd, "I have felt." 

5. No, like a child in doubt and fear : 

But that blind clamor made me wise; 
Then was I as a child that cries, 
But, crying, knows his father near ; 



IN MEMOKIAM 



12ST 



6. And what I am beheld again 

What is, and no man understands ; 
And out of darkness came the hands 
That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 

CXXY. 



The enduring 
power of 
Hope and 
Love. 



1. AVhatever I have said or sung, 

Some bitter notes my harp would give, 
Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live 
A contradiction on the tongue, 

2. Yet Hope had never lost her youth ; 

She did but look through dimmer eyes ; 
Or Love but play'd with gracious lies, 
Because he felt so fixt in truth : 



3. And if the song were full of care, 

He breathed the spirit of the song ; 
And if the words were sweet and 
strong, 
He set his royal signet there ; 

4. Abiding with me till I sail 

To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
And this electric force, that keeps 
A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 

CXXVI. 



At rest in 
Love's wide 
realm. 



1. Love is and was my lord and king, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend, 
Which every hour his couriers bring. 



Love is and was my king and lord, 
And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompass M by his faithful guard, 



130 



IN MEMOEIAM 



And hear at times a sentinel 

Who moves about from place to place, 
And whispers to the worlds of space, 

In the deep night, that all is well. 

CXXVIL 



In spite of 
apparent 
failure, "aL 
is well." 



1. And all is well, tho ' faith and form 

Be sunder 'd in the night of fear; 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 
A deeper voice across the storm, 



2. Proclaiming social truth shall spread, 

And justice, even tho' thrice again 
The red fool-fury of the Seine 
Should pile her barricades with dead. 

3. But ill for him that wears a crown, 

And him, the lazar, in his rags : 
They tremble, the sustaining crags ; 
The spires of ice are toppled down, 

4. And molten up, and roar in flood; 

The fortress crashes from on high, 
The brute earth lightens to the sky, 
And the great yEon sinks in blood, 

5. And compass 'd by the fires of hell; 

While thou, dear spirit, happy star, 
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, 
And smilest, knowing all is well. 

CXXVIII. 



"All things 
work together 
for good." 



The love that rose on stronger wings, 
Unpalsied when he met with Death, 
Is comrade of the lesser faith 

That sees the course of human things. 



IN MEMOEIAM 131 

2. No doubt vast eddies in the flood 

Of onward time shall yet be made, 
And throned races may degrade; 
Yet, ye mysteries of good, 

3. Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 

If all your office had to do 
With old results that look like new— 
If this were all your mission here, 

4. To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, 

To fool the crowd with glorious lies, 
To cleave a creed in sects and cries, , 
To change the bearing of a word, 

5. To shift an arbitrary power, 

To cramp the student at his desk, 
To make old bareness picturesque 
And tuft with grass a feudal tower ; 

6. Why, then my scorn might well descend 

On you and yours. I see in part 
That all, as in some piece of art, 
Is toil cooperant to an end. 



CXXIX. 



giormed^by *■ E> ear friend, far off, my lost desire, 
death. So far, so near in woe and weal ; 

loved the most, when most I feel 
There is a lower and a higher; 

2. Known and unknown ; human, divine ; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; 
Dear heavenly friend that canst not 
die, 
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ; 



132 



IN ME MORI AM 



3. Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
Loved deeplier, darklier understood; 
Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
And mingle all the world with thee. 

cxxx. 



All nature is 
glorified by 
Arthur. 



1. Thy voice is on the rolling air; 

I hear thee where the waters run ; 
Thou standest in the rising sun, 
And in the setting thou art fair. 



2. What art thou then ? I cannot guess ; 

But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power, 
I do not therefore love thee less. 

3. My love involves the love before ; 

My love is vaster passion now; 
Tho' mixt with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

4. Far off thou art, but ever nigh; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 
I prosper, circled with thy voice; 
I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

CXXXI. 



The closing 
prayer. 



1. living will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
Rise in the spiritual rock, 
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, 



2. That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry 'above the conquer 'd years 
To one that with us works, and trust, 



IN MEMORIAM 



133 



Epilogue 



3. .With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 
And all we flow from, soul in soul. 



1. true and tried, so well and long, 

Demand not thou a marriage lay ; 
In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 

2. Nor have I felt so much of bliss 

Since first he told me that he loved 
A daughter of our house, nor proved 
Since that dark day a day like this ; 

3. Tho' I since then have number 'd o'er 

Some thrice three years ; they went and 

came, 
Remade the blood and changed the 

frame, 
And yet is love not less, but more ; 

4. No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret, 
But like a statue solid-set, 
And moulded in colossal calm. 

5. Regret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that are flown, 
For I myself with these have grown 
To something greater than before ; 

6. Which makes appear the songs I made 

As echoes out of weaker times. 
As half but idle brawling rhymes, 
The sport of random sun and shade. 



134 IN MEMORIAM 

7. But where is she, the bridal flower, 

That must be made a wife ere noon ? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 
Of Eden on its bridal bower : 

8. On me she bends her blissful eyes 

And then on thee ; they meet thy look 
And brighten like the star that shook 
Betwixt the palms of Paradise. 

9. O, when her life was yet in bud, 

He too foretold the perfect rose. 
For thee she grew, for thee she grows 
For ever, and as fair as good. 

10. And thou art worthy; full of power; 

As gentle; liberal-minded, great, 
Consistent ; wearing all that weight 
Of learning lightly like a flower. 

11. But now set out: the noon is near, 

And I must give away the bride ; 
She fears not, or, with thee beside 
And me behind her, will not fear. 

12. For I that danced her on my knee, 

That watch 'd her on her nurse's arm, 
That shielded all her life from harm, 
At last must part with her to thee ; 

13. Now waiting to be made a wife, 

Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; 
Their pensive tablets round her head, 
And the most living words of life 

14. Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 

The ' ' Wilt thou ? ' ' answer 'd, and again 
The "Wilt thou?" asked, till out of 
twain' 
Her sweet ' ' I will ' ' has made you one. 



IN MEMORIAM 



135 



15. Now sign your names, which shall be read, 

Mute symbols of a joyful morn, 
By village eyes as yet unborn : 
The names are signed, and overhead 

16. Begins the clash and clang that tells 

The joy to every wandering breeze ; 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 
The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 

17. happy hour, and happier hours 

Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them— maidens of the place, 
That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 

18. happy hour, behold the bride 

With him to whom her hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the 
grave 
That has to-day its sunny side. 

19. To-day the grave is bright for me, 

For them the light of life increased, 
Who stay to share the morning feast, 
Who rest to-night beside the sea. 

20. Let all my genial spirits advance 

To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 
My drooping memory will not shun 
The foaming grape of eastern France. 

21. It circles round, and fancy plays, 

And hearts are warm'd and faces 

bloom, 
As drinking health to bride and groom 
We wish them store of happy days. 



136 IN MEMOHIAM 



22. Nor count me all to blame if I 

Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 
And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

23. But they must go, the time draws on, 

And those white-favor 'd horses wait ; 
They rise, but linger ; it is late ; 
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

24. A shade falls on us like the dark 

From little cloudlets on the grass, 
But sweeps away as out we pass 
To range the woods, to roam the park, 

25. Discussing how their courtship grew, 

And talk of others that are wed, 
And how she look'd, and what he said, 
And back we come at fall of dew. 

26. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, 

The shade of passing thought, the 

wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health, 
The crowning cup, the three-times-three, 

27. And last the dance;— till I retire: 

Dumb is that tower which spake so 

loud, 
And high in heaven the streaming 
cloud, 
And on the downs a rising fire. 

28. And rise, moon, from yonder down, 

Till over* down and over dale 
All night the shining vapor sail 
And pass the silent-lighted town, 



IN MEMOEIAM 137 

29. The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, 

And catch at every mountain head, 
And o'er the friths that branch and 
spread 
Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; 

30. And touch with shade the bridal doors, 

With tender gloom the roof, the wall; 
And breaking let the splendor fall 
To spangle all the happy shores 

31. By which they rest, and ocean sounds, 

And, star and system rolling past, 
A soul shall draw from out the vast 
And strike his being into bounds, 

32. And, moved through life of lower phase, 

Result in man, be born and think, 
And act and love, a closer link 
Betwixt us and the crowning race 

33. Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 

On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their 
hand 
Is Nature like an open book ; 

34. No longer half-akin to brute, 

For all we thought and loved and did, 
And hoped, and suffer 'd, is but seed 
Of what in them is flower and fruit ; 

35. Whereof the man, that with me trod 

This planet, was a noble type 
Appearing ere the times were ripe, 
That friend of mine who lives in God, 

36. That God, which ever lives and loves, 

One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves. 



NOTES 

Throughout these notes, the Roman numerals refer to poems, 
the Arabic numerals to stanzas, and the letters to lines in the 
stanza. 

PROLOGUE 

This poem (dated 1849) was undoubtedly the last part of In 
Memoriam to be written (except possibly XXXIX and LIX), and, 
accordingly, is an expression of the poet's maturest thought. It 
is, in fact, a clear, ringing statement of the triumphant faith 
which had come to him after years of struggle through grief and 
doubt and travail of spirit. It is the embodiment of his deepest 
religious convictions, his profoundest philosophy of life. Its 
significance can be appreciated only after a study of the poems 
which follow. 

1, a. Immortal Love: Tennyson states (Memoir I, 312.) that 
he used "Love" here in the same sense as St. John (I. John, 
Chap. iv). 

1, o, c. With these lines compare 6, a, b. 

2, a. These orbs of light and shade: The planets, which move 
half in sunlight, half in shadow. There is doubtless also a 
spiritual meaning; light is life, shade is death. Compare the 
two lines that follow. 

2, c, d. Thy foot Is on the skull, etc.: An old legend states 
that Christ's cross was planted in Adam's grave; and many 
early painters put a skull at the foot of the cross. (Compare 
Mark, xv, 22.) This thought may have suggested the figure. 

3, c. He thinks he ivas not made to die: The poet once re- 
marked: "I can hardly understand how any great, imaginative 
man, who has deeply lived, suffered, thought and wrought, can 
doubt of the Soul's continuous progress in the after life." 
(Memoir, I, 321.) Compare XXXIV, 1; also "Wages." 

3, d. And thou hast made him: thou art just: We are told 
that Tennyson more than once used this argument. In conversa- 
tion he put it thus: "If you allow a God, and God allows this 
strong instinct and universal yearning for another life, surely 

139 



140 IK MEMOKIAM 

mat is in a measure a presumption of its truth. We cannot give 
up the mignty hopes that make us men." {Memoir, I, 321.) 

4, c, d. Our loills are ours, etc.: Tennyson was an ardent 
beiiever in the rreedom of the will (compare CXXXI; also note on 
GXa, 2, d) ; but he also believed that the highest exercise of free- 
aom is an alliance with the Divine Will. He once said in illus- 
tration of his belief: "Man's Free-will is but a bird in a cage; 
ne can stop at the lower perch, or he can mount to a higher. 
Then that which is and knows will enlarge his cage, give him a 
mgber and a higher perch, and at last break off the top of his 
cage, and let him out to be one with the Free-will of the Uni- 
verse/' {Memoir, I, 318-19.) 

o, a. Systems: Of theology and philosophy. 

5, c. Broken lights: Passing flashes, as from a moving 
prism, or from the facets of a diamond. 

6, a, o. Faith knowledge'. Faith alone gives spiritual 

wisdom, knowledge being confined to sense perception. And yet 
knowledge, too, comes from God. Compare CXIV. 

7, d. One music as before: That is, before faith was dis- 
turbed Dy doubt. Compare Lowell, "The Cathedral." 

"Science was Faith once; Faith were Science now. 
Would she but lay her bow and arrows by, 
And arm her with the weapons of the time." 

b, a. But vaster: This suggests the ultimate purpose of the 
entire poem, — to build up from a modern point of view, after 
irankly facing all the facts, a religious faith which shall be 
truer and nobler than has been possible hitherto. 

\), a. Forgive what seemed my sin, etc.: " 'What seemed' is an 
expression of ignorance: 'What rightly or wrongly I counted 
sin, and what rightly or wrongly I counted worth.' This latter 
equally needs forgiveness; for there is no 'worth' or 'merit' 
except as between man and man." (Bradley.) Compare amonf? 
many scriptural parallels Job, xxii, 2, 3. 

9, j. bvhee I began: Since I began life. 

11, a. Wild and wandering cries: Compare Epilogue, 5, 6. 
The poet no longer feels in the gloomy and rebellious mood in 
which many of the earlier poejois were written. He prays for 
forgiveness for ever cherishing such feelings; but allows the 
poems to stand, in order that the series may be complete and 
thereby more helpful. 



IN MEMORIAM 141 

CYCLE I 
Section One 

I, 1, a, b. Him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones: 
Mr. Henry E. Shepherd, of Charleston, S. C, wrote to the poet 
r.sking to whom he here referred. Tennyson replied: "I believe 
I alluded to Goethe. Among his last words were these: 'Von 
Aenderungen zu hoheren Aenderungen,' 'from changes to higher 
changes.' " Professor Sidgwick wrote to the present Lord Tenny- 
son that he once heard the poet praise Goethe because he was 
"consummate in so many different styles." (Memoir, II, 391-2.) 

I, c. Stepping-stones, etc.: Compare the famous saying of 
St. Augustine: "De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia 
ipsa calcamus." Longfellow uses this idea in his poem, "The 
Ladder of St. Augustine;" and Lowell in his poem, "On the 
Death of a Friend's Child." Tennyson has varied, though hardly 
improved, the thought by changing the metaphor from a ladder 
to "stepping-stones." Another change is that in Tennyson's 
thought the "stepping-stones" are not vices, but all the various 
experiences of life. 

3, a. Let Love clasp Grief, etc.: Shelley had written in 
Adonais, 11. 181-3: 

"Alas! that all we loved of him should be, 
But for our grief, as if it had not been, 
And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!" 
The poet is here determined that his grief shall not be mortal. 
3, c, d. To he drunk with loss, To dance with Death, etc. : The 
reference is doubtless to the wild funeral orgies practised by 
savages. 

II, 1, a. Yew: This is a variety of evergreen tree which lives 
to a great age and is very common in English cemeteries. 
Graspest, etc.: Compare I, 3, a. "Let Love clasp Grief." 

3, a. not for thee the glow, the bloom: For a truer state- 
ment, see XXXIX. 

4, o. Sick for: Longing for. 

III, This poem is an expression of a mood of doubt bordering 
on atheism. Hallam Tennyson writes of his father: "I myself 
have heard him say: 'An Omnipotent Creator who could make 
such a painful world is to me sometimes as hard to believe in as 
to believe in blind matter behind everything.' " (Memoir, I, 314.) 



142 IN MEMORIAL! 

These verses are the expression of his confused and contradictory- 
thought at one of these times. Contrary though the poem is to 
Tennyson's usual ideas, it is a fine statement of the subjective 
philosophy which regards God and the Order of Nature as mere 
projections of human thought. 

1, d. Lying lip: A peculiar expression repeated in aXXIX, J, 
a. It suggests the self-contradictory state of the poet's mind. 
Compare CXXV, 1, c, d. 

4, a. Thing: Sorrow. 

4, c. A vice of Mood: An hereditary taint. 

IV. The mood of the preceding is continued through a troubled 
night; but in the morning, his will asserts itself. 

2, 3. I have ventured to enclose these two stanzas in quota- 
tion marks in order to make clear their dependence on say at 
the end of stanza 1. 

3, c, d. Break, thou deep vase, etc.: It is a familiar fact that 
perfectly still water can be reduced below the freezing point 
without freezing; but if it be slightly jarred, it will crystallize 
at once, sometimes with sufficient expansive force to break the 
containing vessel. 

V. 2. With this stanza compare Wordsworth's lines ("Ode on 
Intimations of Immortality"): 

"To me alone there came a thought of grief: 
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 
And I again am strong." 
3, a. Weeds: Mourning garments. 

3, c, d. The thought of these lines, his inability to express 
himself adequately, is again referred to in XIX and XX. 

VI. Note the four instances of sudden bereavement which the 
poet mentions. 

5. It would seem that Tennyson wrote a letter to his friend 
on Sept. 15, 1833, the very day of Hallam's death. 

7, b. Ranging: Arranging. 

VII. 1, a. Dark house: The home of the Hallams , 67 Wim- 
pole St., where Arthur lived, after his graduation, while studying 
law in London. Of the house he is said to have remarked jest- 
ingly, "We are always to be found at sixes and sevens." Wimpole 
Street was famous in London for its length. Here Tennyson was 
a frequent visitor. See Introduction. 

3, d. Note the roughness of the versification, suggestive of the 
lack of harmony in the poet's mind. 



IN MEMORIAM 143 

VIII. 5, c, d. This poor floicer of poesy .... little cared fori 
It should be remembered that Tennyson's earlier volumes re- 
ceived little appreciation; indeed, in some quarters they met with 
open derision. Hallam, however, had delighted in his friend's 
work and had enthusiastically reviewed the volume of 1830 in 
the Englishman's Magazine. It is not to be wondered that the 
thought of his friend gave Tennyson inspiration even after 
Hallam's death. 

Section Two 

To understand this section, it must be borne in mind that 

though Arthur died Sept. 15, his body, brought from Trieste to 
Dover on a slow sailing-vessel, did not reach England until about 
three months later. The burial took place Jan. 3, 1834. The 
news of his great loss reached Tennyson Oct. 1. The poems of 
this group voice the poet's moods between Oct. 1, 1833, and Jan. 
3, 1834. 

IX, 3, o. Phosphor: The morning star; more frequently, per- 
haps, referred to as Lucifer. The term is used again in CXXI. 3. 

4, a. Sphere all your lights, etc.: Addressed, like the follow- 
ing line, to the "gentle heavens." The word sphere refers to the 
fact that, in a very clear atmosphere, the larger stars, instead of 
appearing as mere points of light, assume a spherical aspect. 
Compare Enoch Arden: "The great stars that globed themselves 
in Heaven." 

5, o. Till all my widowed race be run: This is the first sug- 
gestion of immortality in the series. The line is repeated at the 
end of XVII. 

5, d. More than my brothers are to me: Used as the germ of 
LXXIX, which see. 

X, 1, 6. The bell: A reference to the bell on shipboard struck 
every half-hour to indicate the time. 

4, c. Where the kneeling hamlet, etc.: On one of the tombs 
constructed, as is frequent in English churches, beneath the floor, 
sometimes near or even under the altar, where the people kneel 
for the communion service. See Introduction. 

5, d. Tangle: Also called "tang" or "sea-tang," also "oar- 
weed." A species of sea weed (Laminaria digitata) which grows 
only at or below low-water mark. 

XI. The author told Dr. Gatty that the scene here depicted 
was suggested by a view from a "Lincolnshire wold [a high open 



144 IN MEMOKIAM 

place] from which the whole range from marsh to the sea was 
visible." 

2, b. Furze: Gorse. A thorny evergreen shrub with bright 
yellow flowers (TJlex Europaeus) ; it is very common upon the 
hills and heaths of Great Britain. Stopford Brooke has an inter- 
esting comment on this and the following stanza. {Tennyson: 
His Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 205.) "First, he sees 
the moor at his feet, the dews on the furze, that tremble not, so 
still is the air, but which twinkle in the lifting light of the 
morning. Then he raises his eyes, and that far landscape, to 
which Shelley or Wordsworth would have allotted twenty or 
thirty lines, is done in four. This is Tennyson's concentrated 
manner, and the landscape seems ail the larger from the pre- 
vious description of the small space of ground on which he is 
standing." 

3, c. Lessening: Diminishing by distance. 

3, d. Bounding: Bordering not leaping; see 5, a. Compare 
XVII, 2, o. 

Note how throughout the poem the striking calm of the scene 
and the despairing calm of the poet's heart are emphasized by 
the repetition of the word. 

XII, 1, c. Message knit below, etc.: Messages sent by carrier 
doves are usually fastened about their necks or beneath their 
wings. 

2, o. Mortal ark: The body. The figure is doubtless sug- 
gested by the story of Noah sending a dove from the ark. (Gen., 
viii, 8.) 

XIII, 1. Compare Milton's sonnet, XXIII, "Methought I saw 
my late espoused saint," of which the closing lines are: 

"But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined, 

I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." 

4, 5. The grammatical construction here is obscure: In 4, a, 
before many years, supply daring; in 5, a, supply have before 
time. 

XIV, This poem describes a mental state familiar to all who 
have suffered bereavement. 

1. According to all ordinary rules of versification, this Is ons 
of the faultiest stanzas Tennyson ever wrote. Report (a) and 
po~t (d) constitute an identieal rime, which is usually regarded 
as inadmissible in English poetry; and day (&) and quay (c) 



IN MEMOKIAM 145 

do not rime at all. These imperfections, however, are perhaps 
justified here, as truly reflecting the dazed state of mind which 
the poet is describing. 

3, b. The man I held as half -divine: The poet once remarked 
in regard to Hailam: "He was as near perfection as mortal man 
could be." (Memoir, I, 38.) 

XV, This poem describing a stormy evening is a fine com- 
panion-piece to XI, which is a picture of a calm morning. The 
method is the same in both. Here, as there, he begins with 
what is close at hand (1, c, d) and then, as Brooke well puts it, 
"he lifts his eyes, as before, and we see with him the whole 
world below, painted also in four lines — the forest, the waters, 
the meaaows, struck out, each in one word; and the wildness of 
the wind and t'ne width of the landscape given, as Turner would 
have given them, by the low shaft of storm-shaken sunlight 
dashed from the west right across to the east. Lastly, to 
heighten the impression of tempest, to show the power it will 
have when the night is come, to add a far horizon to the 
solemn world — he paints the rising wrath of the storm in the 
cloud above the ocean rim, all aflame with warlike sunset." 
(Tennyson, His Art. etc., p. 207.) 

3, b. Thy: i. e., the ship's. 

XVI, 1, b. Calm despair and wild unrest: The former refers 
to the mood of poems XI to XIV, especially to that of XI; the 
latter, to the mood of XV. 

Miss Chapman thus concisely sums up the various queries of 
this poem: "Is his sorrow variable? Or do these changes affect 
the surface merely of his deep-seated grief? Or, again, has his 
reason been unhinged by grief?" 

XVII, 4, b. Sacred bark: Nothing is known of the name or 
subsequent history of the vessel which Tennyson so fervently 
blesses in these verses. 

5, d. This line is repeated from IX, 5, b. 

XVIII, 1, b. In English earth: In St. Andrew's church, Cleve- 
don, in the west of England. 

1, c, d. From his ashes, etc.: A very old idea. From the 
\y\nod cf Adonis, Bion tells us, roses sprang up. (See his "La- 
ment for Adonis.") Shellev says in Adonais (11. 171-2): 
"The leprous corpse 
Exhales itself in Powers of gentle breath." 
Still closer to the text is the following, quoted by Rolfe: 



146 IX MEMORIAM 

"And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring!" (Hamlet, V, I, 262-3.) 
2, c. Familiar names: The Eltons, the family to which Ar- 
thur Hallam's mother belonged, are buried in Clevedon church. 
Here, too, some years later, were laid to rest the remains of 
Arthur's fath:r and younger brother. The epitaph of the former, 
composed by Tennyson, is simply this: "Here with his wife and 
children rests Henry Hallam, the historian." 

2, d. The places of his youth: Much of Arthur's boyhood had 
been passed at the neighboring estate of Clevedon Court, the 
residence of Sir Abraham Elton, Bart., his grandfather. 

3, a. Come then, pure hands: Rolfe states that the oearers at 
the funeral were the tenant farmers on the Clevedon estate. 

3, c. Whatever loves to weep: The neuter whatever was no 
doubt suggested by the classical elegies (by Bion, Moschus, 
Theocritus, etc.) in which the poets continually call on rivers, 
mountains, trees, etc., to weep for the departed. 

4. This stanza was of course suggested by the story of Eiisna 
and the Shunamite's son. See II Kings, iv, 32-37. 

As the burial did not take place until Jan. 3, some have 
thought that this poem is out of place before the Cnristmas 
poems. But news traveled slowly seventy years ago, and the 
poet might have supposed that it occurred sooner. The Christ- 
mas poems, moreover, suggest an entirely different line of 
thought. This poem is, accordingly, well placed. 

XIX, 1, a. The Danube to the Severn gave: The present Lord 
Tennyson gives the following account oi the situation of the 
church: "Half a mile to the south of Clevedon in Somersetshire, 
on a lonely hill, stands Clevedon church, 'obscure and solitary,' 
overlooking a wide expanse of water, where the Severn flows 

into the Bristol Channel. It is dedicated to St. Andrew 

From the graveyard you can hear the music of the tide, as it 
washes against the low cliffs not a hundred yards away." 
(Memoir, I, 295.) 

2, c. The babbling Wye: The Wye flows into the Severn a 
short distance above Clevedon. In its iower reaches it is a tidal 
stream, noisily babbling over its shallow oed at euu tide, out 
becoming full and quiet when the tide is nigh. 



IN MEMORIAM 147 

Section Three 

XXI, 1, c. The grasses of the grave: Tennyson did not visit 
Clevedon until 1850 and seems at the time of writing these 
lines to have had the idea that his friend was buried in the 
church-yard. 

1, d. Pipes: The ancient poets frequently speak of pipes 
made of straw. So do the older English poets. Compare Mil- 
ton's "oaten flute" ("Lycidas," 33). 

2, 3, 4, 5. In these stanzas the poet mentions three sorts of 
critics who find fault with him for spending his energies on these 
memorial verses. The first class (stanza 2) accuses him of sen- 
timentality; the second (stanza 3) accuses him of insincerity; 
the third (stanzas 4 and 5) accuses him of wasting time and 
opportunity. An interesting comment on stanzas 4 and 5 is 
found in a letter written by Edward Fitzgerald to his friend 
Donne in January, 1845. "A. T. has near a volume of poems — 
elegiac — in memory of Arthur Hallam. Don't you think the 
world wants other notes than elegiac now? Lycidas is the 
utmost length an elegiac should reach." 

5 ; d. The latest moon: There has been much discussion as 
tc the particular discovery to which these words refer. They 
may have merely a general reference to the many astronomical 
discoveries of modern times, or they may have a more specific 
meaning. In the latter case, the conjectures of Jacobs, Van 
Dyke, and others that this particular poem was written very 
late in the series seem entirely reasonable. Neptune was dis- 
covered by Galle of Berlin in September, 1846, its satellite, or 
"moon," a few weeks later, and the eighth moon of Saturn in 
September, 1848. The last-named year also witnessed Chartist 
outbreaks in England, and revolutions in practically every con- 
tinental country. Compare 4, c, d. 

6. The poet justifies his song by the rare worth of his friend 
and by the fact that his feelings do not permit him to be silent. 

6, d. And pipe out as the linnets sing: Tennyson evidently 
had in mind a line from his favorite German poet, Goethe: 
(Wilhelm, Meisters Lehrjahre, II, xi.) "Ich singe, wie der Vogel 
singt." Carlyle had previously translated the line, "I sing but as 
the linnet sings." 

XXII, 1, c. Four sweet years: Beginning late in 1828, soon 
alter Hallam's matriculation at Cambridge, which followed Ten- 



148 IN MEMOKIAM 

nyson's of the preceding February. The friendship accordingly 
lasted nearly five years, as is suggested in 3, b, "the fifth autumnal 
slope." 
3, d. The Shadow: Death. So also in 5, d, and in XXIII, 1, d. 

XXIII, 1, b. Breaking into song by fits: A suggestion of his 
method of composing these poems. The poet stated, in reply to 
inquiries regarding the matter, that they were written at many 
different times and places, as the spirit moved him, through a 
long course of years. (See Memoir, I, 305.) 

2, a. The keys of all the creeds: Tennyson believed that 
Death leads to the presence of Eternal Truth, where all ques- 
tions will be answered, and all theories displaced by absolute 
knowledge. 

3-6. A beautiful description of perfect friendship, joy being 
derived from, 1st, communion with nature (stanza 3. Pan in 
last line stands for Nature in its various aspects) ; 2nd, perfect 
sympathy and mutual understanding (stanza 4); 3rd, an optimis- 
tic view of life and the buoyancy of youth (stanza 5) ; 4th, 
enjoyment of their studies in Greek philosophy and poetry 
(stanza 6). The Greek poets whom Hallam most admired were, 
according to his father, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Sappho, and Bion. 
Plato was his favorite philosopher. (See Remains, p. xxiv.) 

XXIV, 1, c, d. The very source and fount of Day, etc.: Even 
the sun has dark spots on it. 

3, a, b. The haze of grief Makes former gladness loom, etc.: 
It is a familiar fact that objects seen dimly through a fog appear 
larger than reality. 

3, c. Another case of condensed expression. To make the 
meaning clear, supply Or is it at beginning of this line. 

4, a. The past will ahcays ivin, etc.: Compare the familiar 
line by Young: "Blessings brighten as they take their flight." 
(Night Thoughts, II, 602.) 

XXV, The best commentary on this poem is the passage from 
Bacon quoted by Genung and others: "But one thing is most 
Admirable, which is, that this Communicating of a Mans Seife 
to his Frend works two contrairie Effects; For it redoubleth 
Ioyes, and cutteth Griefes in Halfes. For there is no man, that 
lmparteth his Ioyes to his Frend, but he ioyeth the more; And 
no Man, that imparteth his Griefes to his Frend, but hee grieveth 
the lesse." (Essay on Friendship.) It cannot, of course, be 
affirmed that the poet had this passage in mind when writing 



IN MEMOKIAM 149 

these verses; but it is certain that he was a great reader and 
admirer of Bacon. Ke declared that Bacon's Essays contains 
more wisdom than any other hook of the same size. (Memoir, II, 
415.) 

XXVI, 1, b, c, d. For I long to prove, etc.: This is one of 
the central thoughts of the entire poem. It is suggested in I, 4. 

2, a. That eye: The eye of God. 

3, b. Or see: Hailam Tennyson reports a conversation In 
which his father said: "To God all is present. He sees pres- 
ent, past, and future as one." (Memoir, I, 322.) Compare "The 
Ancient Sage," II, 102-104; also note Exodus., Ill, 14. 

3, d. Supply in before Love. 

4. If pessimism be the true philosophy, let me die at once! 
Compare XXXV, 5, and note. 

4, c. That Shadoio waiting with the keys: Compare XXIII, 1, 
d and 2, a. 

4, d. My proper scorn: My own scorn. A Latinism fre- 
quently employed by Shakespeare, Dryden and other writers and 
by Tennyson elsewhere. For an example of this use by Sir 
Thomas Browne, see the note on LXXIV, 1. 

XXVII, 1, b. Nolle rage: Fine, strong emotions. The phrase- 
ology was no doubt suggested by Gray's Elegy, 1. 51. 

3, d. Want-begotten rest: Rest due to ignorance or disability. 

4. This stanza gives, at least, a partial answer to the initial 
query, found in I, 2. The lines have frequently been jestingly 
quoted and parodied; nevertheless they are the statement of a 
great truth. The poet repeats the last three lines at the begin- 
ning of LXXXV, and in that and subsequent poems carries the 
thought on to a triumphant conclusion. 

CYCLE II 
Section Foue 

XXYin. Christmas, 1833. This date is evident from XXX, 4, 

t, d. 

1, c. The Christmas bells: Most of the parish churches in 
England are provided with chimes or "peals," the ringing of 
which is a regular feature of the Christmas celebration. This 
"change-ringing" frequently begins a fortnight or even a month 
before Christmas day. Compare 1, a, draws near. 

2, a. Four hamlets round: There are so many churches in 



150 IN MEMORIAM 

the vicinity of Somersby that it is impossible to state which four 
the poet had in mind. Canon Rawnsley suggests Tetford, Hagg, 
Langton, and Ormsby. 

3, a. Each voice four changes: That is, there were four bells 
in each peal, which, being rung first down the scale, then up, 
seemed to say, (lines c and d) Peace and goodwill, goodwill and 
peace. 

5. The old associations of Christmas are all happy, and so now, 
even in his loneliness, his sorrow is touched with joy (c). 

5, b. When a toy: Dr. Van Dyke appropriately compares T.'s 
poem "Far — Far — Away," 4-8. 

XXIX, 4, a. Old sisters: i. e., Use and Wont, mentioned two 
lines above. 

XXX, 4, b. We sung: The presence of rang at the end of the 
previous line seems to have determined the choice of this form 
instead of sang which is used below. 

4, c. We sang: The complete grammatical structure here 
would require which we had sung. 

4, d. Last year: Arthur had evidently spent the Christmas 
of 1832 with the Tennysons. 

7, c. Pierces, etc.: The sentence is inverted, flame being the 
Bubject. 

7, d. From orb to orb, etc.: The idea is that the soul passes 
through various stages or worlds, leaving each through the veil 
of death, and emerging each time "with gathered power." Com- 
pare XLI, G; XLV, 4; and LXXXII, 2, for similar ideas; also "De 
Profundis" (II, 2, 18) "From death to death, thro' life and life." 
Also "The Ring," (11. 3S and following): 

"No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man, 

But 

Aeonian evolution, swift or slow, 
Through all the spheres." 
Compare also "The Two Voices" (stanza 116 and following); 
"Wages," especially the closing line; and "The Death of the 
Duke of Clarence and Avondale," (II, 12-14). 

8, d. Hope: Christ. 

XXXI, The thought of immortality in XXX naturally suggests 
the story of the raising of Lazarus. John, xi, 37-44. 

This same story was Browning's inspiration for his poem, 
"An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience oi 
Karshish." 



IN MEMORIAM 151 

4, d. That Evangelist: St. John, who alone records this mira- 
cle. 

XXXII. For the suggestion of this poem see John, xii, 1-3. 

XXXIII. A plea for patience and toleration very applicable to 
the present day. This poem may be interpreted as a suggestion of 
the proper attitude to be maintained by an "advanced" or ration- 
alistic theologian towards those who cling to a simple traditional 
faith, even though it be mingled with error. The same thought 
is also well expressed by Jowett, who says: "Truth is good, and 
to be received thankfully and fearlessly by all who are capable 
of receiving it. But on the other hand, it is not always to be 
imparted in its entirety to those who cannot understand it, and 
whose minds would be puzzled and overwhelmed by it." (See 
Memoir, 1, 310.) 

1, d. Nor cares to fix itself to form: This is usually true of 
the critic of the simple faith. He is impatient of all forms and 
ceremonies, and criticises the churches for using them. Thi3 
was not the case with Tennyson. 

While believing that Truth was far greater than any human 
expression of it, he did not share the critic's "irreverent impa- 
tience" at men's attempts to express it. Indeed, he habitually 
attended church and partook of the sacrament. He has forcibly 
stated his idea of the necessity for forms in "Akbar's Dream." 

2, o. Her early Heaven: Her childlike ideas about Heaven. 

3, c. Sacred be the flesh and blood: This no doubt refers to 
the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, a doctrine 
in which the poet did not himself believe, but which he recog- 
nized might be helpful to those who did believe it. Compare 
4, c, d. 

XXXIV. In "Vastness," published in the poet's old age, he 
gives us another statement of the thought of this poem. Com- 
pare, especially stanza XVII: — 

"What is it all, if we all of us end in being our own 
corpse-coffins at last, 
Swallow'd in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in 
the deeps of a meaningless Past?" 
Compare also "Prologue," 3 and notes. 

2, a. This round of green, this orb of flame: The earth and 
the sun. 

2, c. Some wild poet: Compare "The Play," for a further 
mse of the same figure. 



152 IN MEMOEIAM 

4, b. The charming serpent: Gatty refers to the boomslang 
(Bucephalus capensis), a South-African snake, which, by the 
power of fascination, attracts birds into its mouth. 

XXXV. The poem consists of a hypothetical question ("an 
idle case" 5, b) found in the first seven lines; the answer to 
this question (2, d — 4); and comment thereon (5-6). 

The question: Even if Love were known to be temporary, 
would it not still be sweet? 

The answer: The knowledge of its approaching end would 
spoil it. 

The comment: An affection known to be temporary would be 
necessarily low and bestial. 

3, c. Aeonian: Aeon-long, everlasting; a word of the poet's 
coining. It occurs again in XCV, 11, a. The stanza gives an exact 
statement of the geological processes continually going on. 

4, b. Forgetful: Memory-dispelling. Shakespeare, Milton and 
Dryden all occasionally use the word in this sense. See dic- 
tionary for illustrations. 

5, Genung quotes Munger, "The Freedom of Faith," p. 243. 

"Love cannot tolerate the thought of its own end. It an- 
nounces itself as an eternal thing. ... Its logic is, there is 
no death." 

Compare XXVI; also the last stanzas of "Vastness." 

6, o. Satyr-shape: Half human and half bestial like the fabu- 
lous race of Satyrs. 

XXXVI. Hallam Tennyson says that his father, when ques- 
tioned in regard to his belief in Christ, would reply, having this 
poem especially in mind, that he had given his answer in "In 
Memoriam," (Memoir, I, 325). 

1, a. Truths in manhood darkly join: This refers to XXXIV 
and XXXV, and in general to the fact that all men have certain 
fundamental religious ideas though they are perhaps vaguely 
conceived. Christ (d) clearly expressed them. 

2, This stanza might be paraphrased thus: God wisely dealt 
with men among whom it is a general rule that abstractions fail 
to make an impression, while stories and concrete instances are 
always interesting. Of course, the poet has especially in mind 
the parables of Christ. 

3, a. The Word: See John, I, 1 and 14. Tennyson himself ex- 
plained the Evangelist's meaning in this expression to be "the 



IN MEMOKIAM 153 

Revelation of the Eternal Thought of the Universe." (Memoir, 
I, 312.) 

4. An interesting parallel to this stanza is the following, quot- 
ed by Collins from Cranmer's Preface to the Bible: "For the 
Holy Ghost has so ordered and attempered the Scriptures that in 
them as well publicans, fishers, shepherds may find their edifica- 
tions as great doctors their erudition." 

4, c. Those wild eyes: The savages in the islands of the sea. 

XXXVII, 1, a, Urania: Anciently the muse of astronomy, but 
Milton (Paradise Lost) used the word to mean "The Heavenly 
Muse," or the muse of the loftiest poetry. Shelley follows his 
example ("Adonais," II and IV) and Tennyson here does the 
same. 

2, b. Parnassus: The mountain in Greece sacred to Apollo 
and the muses. The thought prosaically stated is, Cease from 
these high themes; return to earth, where you belong. 

3, a. Melpomene: Anciently the muse of tragedy, but regard- 
ed by Spenser (see November Eclogue in the "Shepherd's Cal- 
endar") as the muse of elegy. She is therefore a fitting muse to 
inspire Tennyson at this time. Yet Melpomene does not quite 
suffice. The poet is not content to write an ordinary elegy, but 
aspires to rise to the highest ranges of thought. 

3, c. I am not worthy, etc.: Compare a similar confession by 
Burns. ("To the Rev. John McMath:") 

"All hail, Religion! maid divine! 
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine 
Who in her rough imperfect line 
Thus daurs to name thee." 

4, c, d. In these two lines the poet gives two reasons for writ- 
ing. The first was dwelt on at some length in V; both are again 
referred to in LXXV and elsewhere. 

5, In this stanza we are told how it happens that these poems 
are so different from ordinary elegies. It is because the author 
through his friendship with Hallam had been led to the heights 
and depths of thought. 

XXXVIII, 1, b. Altered skies: The statement that the face 
of Nature has changed is found in all the classical elegies. Mil- 
ton refers to it thus in "Lycidas," 37. 

"But O the heavy change, now thou art gone." 



154 



IN MEMORIAM 



1, c. The purple from the distance dies: i. e., gives place to 

the bright green of spring. 

2, a. Blowing: Blooming. 

2, c and following. Another reason for writing is hp~e added 
to those already named — that perhaps Arthur knows. Compare V 
and VIII. 

XXXIX. The fact that, twenty-one years after the first publi- 
cation of the series, the poet inserted this poem at this point 
would seem to indicate that it has some special significance. This 
significance is made clear if we bear in mind that one of Tenny- 
son's arguments for belief in immortality is the fact that, with 
the lapse of time, the first violence and despair of grief passes 
away. (See Introduction.) He wishes to impress upon us the 
thought that this change is slowly taking place in his own feel- 
ings. So he reverts to the figure of the yew tree with which he 
began (II). This poem is in strong contrast with II, and is truer 
than it. In that, he had declared that the dark yew is unchanging 
In its gloom. But now, in the gracious springtime, he sees it 
put forth its tiny blossoms. He accepts this as expressive of the 
slight change in his own feelings, although despondency still per- 
sists and predominates. 

1, c. Living smoke: The abundant pollen of the yew scatters 
in clouds, when the tree is shaken. Compare "The Holy Grail," 
1. 15. 

3, o. Lying lips: Compare a similar expression in regard to 
Sorrow in III, 1. 

XL, 1, a. Could we forget, etc: A wish. Would that we could 
forget! 

5, a. Thee: Arthur. 

5, c. Those great offices that suit: A textual change made in 
this line is interesting and suggestive. The line originally read, 
"In such great offices as suit." The poet changed it in order to 
avoid allowing a word beginning with s to follow immediately 
on one ending in s. In his mature work he carefully avoided 
such groupings and also sought to eliminate them from his earlier 
poems. He called the process "kicking the geese out of the boat" 
(Memoir, II, 14.) He told Mr. Knowles that he would almost 
rather sacrifice a meaning than let two s's come together. 

7, a. All they would have told: All that they wish her to tell. 

XLI. The germ of this poem and the six that follow is found 
in the last stanza of the preceding, where the thought is suggested 



IN MEMORIAM 155 

that he shall one day meet his friend. Questions, then, naturally 
arise as to the nature of the meeting. 

3, c. The grades of life: The various stages of spiritual exist- 
ence. Compare XXX, 7, and note; also XLVII, 4; LXXXII, 2. 

6, c. The secular tc-oe: Endless ages of the future. Compare 
"secular abyss to come," LXXVI, 2, o. 

XLII, 1, o. Still: Always, as frequently in poetry. 

XLIII. Tennyson's own note on this poem is as follows: "If 
the immediate life after death be only sleep, and the spirit be- 
tween this life and the next should be folded like a flower in a 
night slumber, then the remembrance of the past might remain, 
as the smell and color do in the sleeping flower; and in that 
case the memory of our love would last as true, and would live 
pure and whole within the spirit of my friend until after it was 
unfolded at the breaking of the morn, when the sleep was over." 
(Memoir, II, 421.) 

3, o. That still garden of the souls: The idea of a garden Is 
suggested by the figure of the flower. The idea, of course, is, the 
aoiding place of souls. So means provided. 

4, c. Prime: Dawn. 

4, d. Rewaken: The subject is love in 4, a. 

XLIV. The thought of this poem is very closely akin to the 
Platonic doctrine that before birth the soul is in contact with 
pure, spiritual, archetypal forms, or "ideas," a faint memory of 
which sometimes flashes across the mind during life. See Phaedo, 
73 and following. Wordsworth bases his famous "Ode on Intima- 
tions of Immortality" on a similar thought. Tennyson gives ex- 
pression to it in "The Two Voices" (stanzas 116-128); also in 
"The Ancient Sage" (11. 217-227); and in "Far— Far— Away" (11. 
13-15). 

1, d. God shut the doorways of his head: A very obscure ex- 
pression. Gatty and others following him interpret it as referring 
to the closing up of the sutures in an infant's skull. Others un- 
derstand it as referring to the failing powers of extreme old 
age. Both views are too literal, and the latter is utterly im- 
possible. Taken in connection with the central idea of the poem, 
the thought would seem to be that the soul, which before birth 
had had a free existence, is on the instant of birth imprisoned in 
the body, with all avenues of escape closed. Compare Browning's 
lines in "Paracelsus," I: 



156 IN MEMOMAM 

"There is an inmost centre in us all 
Where truth abides in fulness, and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in," etc. 
3, 4. In these somewhat obscure stanzas the thought is that 
in the life to come faint memories of this life may flash across 
the mind. 

3, o. The water of the mythical river Lethe produced forget- 
fulness. The meaning is, If Death thus forgets, i. e., faintly re- 
members. 

4, c. My guardian angel: Compare Matt., xviii, 10. 
XLV. With this poem compare "De Profundis." 

Dr. Martineau (Study of Religion, II, 342) gives the thought of 
this poem in philosophical language: "Once at least have we 
been disengaged from the infinite, and emerged from non-exist- 
ence. In comparison with this is it not a small thing to emerge 
from Death? For there is now, at all events, the ready-made Ego, 
the established unit of formed character and practised powers, 
instead of blank nothingness, a mere zero of potentiality. There 
is no need to provide both field and agent: let the field be opened 
and the agent is there." (Quoted by Robinson.) 

XLVI, 1, a. We ranging down this lower track: That is, 
while we are moving down the path of earthly life. 

1, c. Is shadow 'd, etc.: That is, much is forgotten. 

3, d. Those five years: Compare XXII, 1-3. 

4. This close-wrought stanza might be thus paraphrased: O 
Love, if those five years constituted thy whole province, it would 
be small indeed; but it is not so. limited, for thy presence, like 
a beautiful star, lord of the entire life, lights up my whole 
career from birth to death. 

XLVI I. Tennyson here considers a theory somewhat akin to 
the Buddhistic idea of Nirvana — considers it only to reject it. 
Forty years later, though perhaps then less insistent, he held 
the same opinion of the theory as that set forth in this poem. 
His son records that in June, 1890, the poet had a conversation 
with Professor Tyndall in the course of which he expressed his 
belief in "individual immortality." The scientist suggested that 
we might all be "absorbed into the Godhead," to which Tennyson 
replied: "Suppose that He is the real Person, and we are only 
relatively personal" (Memoir, II, 380). At another time, in speak- 
ing of this theory of absorption, he said: "Let them [its advo- 
cates] at all events allow us many existences of individuality be- 



IN MEMORIAM 157 

fore this absorption." (Memoir, I, 319.) This doctrine of the sev- 
eral existences is referred to in XXX, 7, and elsewhere. See note 
on XXX, 7. There is, also, a suggestion of this doctrine here, in 
the first and last stanzas of the poem. 
1. This entire stanza is the subject of is, the first word in 2. 

1, b. Rounds: Stages of existence. See note above on doc- 
trine of several existences. 

4, a. The last and sharpest height: The last "round" or stage 
of existence. 

4, d. Light: The Divine Essence. 

For ideas opposed to those expressed here, see "Adonais," 
xxxviii, 5-9. 

XLVIII, 2, 3. Compare "The Ancient Sage," 11. 57-77. 

3, c, d. Holds it sin * * * to draw, etc.: Tennyson, even 
if he had been a pessimist, would not have burdened others with 
his melancholy ideas. 

4, c. Short sivallow-flights of song: These words suggest the 
method of composition by which the series grew. 

XLIX. This poem fitly closes the fourth group. Throughout 
the section the poet has brooded over the problem of the future 
life, approaching it from many standpoints, "from art, from na- 
ture, from the schools" (1, a). He has derived a superficial com- 
fort from his speculations; yet, under all, lies his grief deep and 
impenetrable, and full of doubt. 

Section Five. 

In this section, his speculations lead him farther and farther 
Into the gloom, and his despair nearly overcomes him. The open- 
ing prayer (Poem L) appropriately begins the section. 

L, 1, a. Light: The light of faith and hope. For a time when 
this light is low indeed, see LIV-LVI. 

2, c, d. Time a maniac: Supply seems. So also in d, Life 
seems a Fury. Dust in c refers to the human body which at 
death returns "dust to dust." (Compare LVI, 5, c.) Flame in d 
is a type of suffering. In the poet's gloomy moods, death and 
suffering sometimes seem the only realities of life. 

3, o. Men the flies: Supply seem, as above. In a similar 
strain, in "Vastness," he speaks of men as "ants," "gnats," and 
"bees." Similarly in Job, xxv, 6, man is called a worm. 

4, b, and following: i. e., in order that you may point out to 
me the dawning of the eternal day. Term means end. 



158 IN MEMORIAM 

LII, 1, a, &. I cannot love thee as I ought, etc.: This passage 
seems to mean, not "I am unable to love thee," etc., but rather, 
"It cannot be that I am loving thee as I ought, for I recognize 
that my life is full of sin whereas true love would reflect thy 
purity." 

3, c, d. The sinless years, etc.: The life of Christ. 

4, c. Is gathered in: Shall be gathered in. Present tense for 
the future, as frequently in prophecy. 

4, d. Shell from pearl: The body from the soul. 

LIII. The preceding poem brought up the problem of evil. In 
this apd the following poem the poet speculates on the problem. 
Here he reflects that evil sometimes serves a purpose in the de- 
velopment of character, since in struggling to overcome it, moral 
strength is gained. Compare the saying of St. Augustine quoted 
in the note on I, 1, c. But to advise youths to plunge into sin 
for the purpose of later gaining strength is exceedingly danger- 
ous, he thinks; for there are some who thereby succumb to sin. 
His conclusion is stated in 4, a, "Hold thou the good; define it 
well." 

2, a. Dare we to this fancy give: Dare we give in to this doc- 
trine? 

LIV. The thought of the multitudes overcome by evil ("those 
that eddy round and round," mentioned in 3, d, of the preceding) 
brings the poet face to face with the problem in its wider ap- 
plications. It is no wonder that he is baffled, for it is unques- 
tionably one of the most difficult problems with which the human 
mind has ever grappled. Again he tries, as in the preceding 
poems, to keep on "the sunnier side of doubt"; but he realizes 
his limitations more keenly than ever. He can but feebly trust 
that good will eventually befall all. The theory here put forth 
so tentatively is also suggested at the close of "The Vision of 
Sin"; while in "Faith," and "God and the Universe" it is confi- 
dently asserted. Moreover, there are references to it in his re- 
ported conversations. His son once heard him say that he 
"would rather know that he was to be lost eternally than not 
know that the whole human race was to live eternally." (Memoir, 
I, 321.) See also note on LV, 5, d. Compare also "Despair," 
XIX, 3. 

LV. This poem logically grows out of the preceding. The first 
two lines repeat the thought of LIV, 2, and LIV, 4, o-d. In his bit- 
terness of spirit, the poet now turns for light and guidance to 



IN MEMORIAM 159 

Science. But Science brings him no comfort. Confusion worse 
comounded rules in his mind. 

1-3. A remark of the poet recorded by his son in 1892 is an 
interesting comment on this passage. In speaking of faith in 
God's love, he said: "We do not get this faith from Nature or 
the world. If we look on Nature alone, full of perfection and im- 
perfection, she tells us that God is disease, murder and rapine. 
We get this faith from ourselves, from what is highest within us." 
(Compare 1, d.) (Memoir, I, 314.) 

1, c. Derives: Springs. 

2, c, d. So careful of the type, etc.: A scientific fact after- 
wards (1859) explained by Darwin in The Origin of Species. 
Van Dyke appropriately quotes from Romanes (Darwin and after 
Darwin, I, 265) to the effect that we have here "a striking redu- 
plication by Science of a general truth previously stated by 
Poetry." 

3, c. Fifty seeds, etc.: Modern Science finds many greater ex- 
amples of wastefulness than this. For instance, it is stated that 
a single codfish produces eight or nine million eggs, of which, on 
an average, not more than two will reach maturity. 

5, d. The larger hope: Hallam Tennyson says that by this 
phrase his father meant "that the whole human race would 
through, perhaps, ages of suffering, be at length purified and 
saved, even those who now 'better not with time.' " {Memoir, I, 
321-2.) Compare Note on LIV. 

LVI. This poem, again, is closely linked with the preceding, 
the first line being caught up from LV, 2, c. Further pondering 
shows the poet that Nature is apparently even more heedless than 
he had at first thought. A mood of despair somewhat akin to 
this is dramatically set forth in Tennyson's poem "Despair." 

1, o. Scarped: Cut down vertically. 

1, c. She cries: Nature speaks — by means of fossils. 

2, c. The spirit does out mean the breath: A correct defini- 
tion of the original meaning of the Latin spiritus. 

2, d. I know no more: Natural Science has to do only with 
matter. 

4, c, d. Nature, red in tooth and claw, etc.: Compare Note on 
LV, 1-3. 

5, c. Be blown about the desert dust: The thought is the 
same as that in L, 2, c. Be blown, of course, grammatically fol- 
lows shall he in 2, d. 



160 IN MEMOKIAM 

6, a. No more? Is this the whole story? In this stanza, th9 
poet, weighed down by his bereavement, and also by the mighty 
problems of human life and destiny, reaches the lowest depths of 
his despondency. 

6, b. Dragons of the prime: The huge mesozoic reptiles, such 
as the dinosaur, etc. 

7, b. Thy voice: Arthur's. Hallam had grappled with these 
problems, and had reached a measure of satisfaction. (Compare 
XCVL 2-6.) He had set forth his ideas in his essay, Theodicwa 
Novissima. 

LVII. Gatty suggests that this may have been addressed to hia 
sister. (See 2, a.) 

1, a, b. The song of woe * * * an earthly song: Compare 
XXXVII, 4. Compare also the closing line in "Vastness." 

2, d. My work will fail: Compare LXXV-LXXVII. 

3, b, c. Bell will seem to toll The passi?ig, etc.: The reference 
is to the custom of tolling the so-called "passing-bell" for the 
dying. 

4, c. Ave. Ave, Ave: A word of greeting or farewell used by 
the Romans. The poet doubtless has in mind some lines of his 
favorite Latin lyric poet, Catullus, in which the latter bids fare- 
well to his departed brother, saying, "Frater, ave atque vale." 
(Catullus, Opera, ci.) In 1880, when Tennyson was in Italy, he 
visited the ruins of the country-house of Catullus, and, recalling 
that poet's lament, composed his lines entitled "Frater Ave atque 
Vale," which see. For another allusion to Catullus's elegy, which 
he thought no modern elegy could equal in pathos, see a letter to 
Gladstone in Memoir, II, 239. 

LVIII. The preceding poem might fittingly have closed this 
section, and seems originally intended as a final note. (Compare 
1, a.) But the poet was apparently unwilling to conclude so dis- 
mally, and consequently holds out here a promise of better things. 

3, a. The high Muse: Urania, the heavenly muse." Compare 
XXXVII, 1, a, and Note. 

Section Six 

In the preceding sections, the poet has given vent to various 
moods of grief, doubt, and despair. He has pondered the prob- 
lem of the future life, the problem of Evil, and the problem of 
Nature's beneficence, but has arrived at no very satisfactory con- 
clusions. His mind is full of misgivings and wistful yearnings; 



IN MEMOKIAM 161 

he is unsettled and overwrought. He hopes, however, deep down 
in his heart, that Sorrow has a more beneficent ministry than 
he has yet discerned; and so, apparently after an extended in- 
terval, (see LVIII) he begins again and in a calmer strain. 

LIX. This poem was added in the fourth edition (1851). The 
poet evidently felt that something more was needed to explain 
the wide difference in mood between the following poems and 
those that precede. 

1, b. No casual mistress, but a wife: That is, not giving him 
passing moods of violent emotion, but permanently influencing his 
life and character, — making him "wise and good." (2, d.) This is 
certainly very different from III, which was also addressed to Sor- 
row. Observe, however, that stanzas 1 and 2 are both questions, 
implying that the speaker is uncertain whether or not Sorrow can 
affect him as he hopes. 

2, c. Rule my blood: Contrast with III, 4, c. 

4, d. Thee: The poet is still addressing Sorrow. 

4, d. Could hardly tell what name loere thine: As in the clos- 
ing cycle which is written in a triumphant strain. 

LX. In this poem and the five that follow, the poet, assuming 
that Arthur still lives, tries to imagine in what regard Arthur 
holds their old-time friendship. 

LXI, 1, b. Change replies: Exchange replies; i. e., converse. 

3, a. Doubtful shore: Indistinct because of distance or im- 
perfect memory. Compare "dim touch," XLIV, 3, c. 

3, d. Shakespeare: The great dramatist is mentioned as a con- 
spicuous example of "the circle of the wise" (1, c.) ; and also 
because in his sonnets he has paid a beautiful tribute to friend- 
ship. 

LXI I. This poem might easily have been made a part of the 
preceding, so closely connected are the two. 

1, a. An eye that's downward cast: Refers to LXI, 2; a. 

2, a. And thou: Supply be from 1, c. The self-denying love 
involved in this wish is seen when we recall such poems as 
XLIV, L and LXI. 

2, a. Declined: Stooped. 

3, a. Novel: The word here means simply new or different. 
LXIII. This poem is, likewise, closely connected with the 

foregoing. It gives in analogy a tentative answer to the question 
raised in LXII. 
1, d. Assumptions: Aspirings. 



162 IN MEMORIAM 

3, c. Round: a verb. Compare XXX, 7. 

LXIV. The thought here is similar to that of LXIII, but the 
conception is finer and the analogy closer. This was a favorite 
poem of President McKinley. It describes something which has 
occurred much more frequently in the United States than in 
England. The twenty-eight lines form a single complex sentence, 
but the construction is not difficult. 

3, b. The golden keys: The symbol of high office. 

6, a. The limit: An appositive of the stream in the preceding 
line. 

LXV, 1, c. d. "Love's too precious to be lost," etc. These lines 
refer to the last two poems. 

2, b. Phases: Moods or meditations. 

2, c. Flutters up: A metaphor probably suggested by a but- 
terfly emerging from the chrysalis. 

LXVI, 1, a. Diseased: Dis-eased, i. e., ill at ease. 

2, c. Has made me kindly with my kind: Here at last, is a 
positive statement, forming a partial answer to the initial query 
of I, 2, as to how any gain was to accrue from his loss. Compare 
Wordsworth's statement, likewise made after a sad personal be- 
reavement, in "Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a Picture of Peele 
Castle": — 

"I have submitted to a new control. 

A deep distress hath humanized my soul." 

3, b. Whose jest: The habitual, quiet cheerfulness of the 
blind has often been noted. The poet's state of mind is similar. 
Though he is always conscious of his loss, a sweet spirit of resig- 
nation is displacing the wilder moods of the past. Thus the 
prayer at the beginning of the section (LIX) is being answered. 

4, d. His night of loss. Compare Milton's accounts of his 
blindness in "Paradise Lost," iii, 21-55; in his sonnet "On His 
Blindness"; and the closing line of his sonnet "On His Deceased 
Wife." 

LXVII. This and the four poems that follow are all closely 
related, forming the second group of this section. These poems, 
like XXII-XXIV, are largely reminiscent, but the mood is much 
calmer; LXVII-LXXI all describe dreams, thoughts and feelings 
which are spontaneous, "beyond the will." (LXX, 4, a.) 

1, b. Thy place of rest: In the manor aisle of Clevedon 
church. See Introduction and notes on XVIII and XIX. 



IN MEMORIAM 163 

1, c. Broad water of the west: Robinson states that the 
Severn is nine miles wide at this point. 

2, a. Thy marble bright in dark appears: Rolfe is authority 
for the statement that when the moon is high, it shines in 
through the large south window, lighting up the tablet as here 
described. 

4, c. Dark church: Tennyson first wrote chancel, being misled 
by Henry Hallam's account of his son's burial-place. After visit- 
ing the church in 1850, he changed the reading. (Memoir, I, 305.) 

LXVIII. 1, b. Bleep, Death's twin brother: According to Greek 
mythology, Sleep and Death were sons of Erebus and Nox. They 
are frequently referred to together as in Iliad, XIV, 231; and XVI, 
672. 

4, d. Foolish sleep transfers to thee: As Davidson notes, this- 
shows keen psychological observation. 

LXIX. In this poem, Tennyson recapitulates in a figurative 
way all that he has thus far said. At first he had thought that 
his life was blighted forever; all the world seemed dark and 
trivial, and he withdrew from his fellowmen to mourn. But 
something, which in conversation he once described as "the divine 
thing in the gloom," gave him new life and hope, although even 
in this poem he cannot understand the mystery. With stanzas 1 
and 2, compare, for example, poems I-VIII, XIX and XX, and 
others; with 3, compare XXI, XXXVII, and others; with 4, b and 
following, compare XXXIX, LXIV-LXVI, and others. 

5, d. The words were hard to understand: Compare the clos- 
ing lines of "The Vision of Sin." To interpret these words — 
words not of grief but of comfort — is the burden of the poems 
that follow. 

LXX. This poem, like the preceding, is more than an account 
of a curious dream; it is a reflection of the poet's state of mind. 
When he strives to reason out the mysteries of life (as, for ex- 
ample, in most of the poems from XXXIV to LVI), he finds only 
confusion; but stealing into his heart, beyond the power of his 
mind to comprehend or his will to control, there is coming a sense 
of peace. 

LXXI. 1, d. In which we xoent thro' summer France: A ref- 
erence to the journey to France on which Tennyson and Hallam 
went together in the summer of 1830. See introduction. 
The same journey is also mentioned in the poem "In the Valley 
of Cauteretz," which the poet wrote on revisiting the region in. 



16-i IN MEMORIAM 

August, 1861. In this latter poem the poet's memory is at fault 
and he recalls the journey as two and thirty years ago, when in 
reality it was one and thirty. (See Memoir, I, 475.) 

Section Seven 

LXXII, 3, c, d. The daisy close Her crimson fringes: Compare 
Burns's address to the daisy, "Wee modest crimson-tipped flower." 
This stanza shows Tennyson's careful observation of nature. 

4. That is, if, instead of being dark and rainy, the day had 
been clear and sunny, it would have seemed equally desolate to 
him. 

7, d. Hide thy shame: Gatty suggests as a parallel passage 
Job's curse upon his birthday. See Job, iii, 3-9. 

LXXII I, 1, c. How know I, etc.: The meaning is: How do 
I know which of the myriad activities of life had need of thy 
strong, true assistance? 

2, c, d. I curse not Nature, no, nor Death, etc.: The mood 
here expressed is very different from that of LXXII. Compare the 
lines "To J. S." (James Spedding), which must have been writ- 
ten about the same time as this poem, noticeably stanza ix, 1, 3; 
"Great Nature is more wise than I." 

3, 4. Many authors might be quoted who speak thus of the 
transitoriness of earthly fame, the longing for which is the "last 
infirmity of noble minds." The passage which is most suggestive 
in connection with these lines is in "Lycidas," 11. 70-84. 

4, c, d. "The large results Of force, etc.: Bradley here quotes 
lines from the "Ode on the Duke of Wellington": 

"Nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here." 
LXXIV, 1. Gatty quotes an interesting parallel to this stanza 
from Cir Thomas Browne's "Letter to a Friend": "He lost his 
own face and looked like one of his near relations; for he main- 
tained not his proper countenance but looked his uncle." 

2, a, b. Koio * * * I see thee ichat thou art, etc. Here 
is another "gain in loss." Compare LXVI, 2. 

LXXV, 2, c. Or voice: Supply tuhat, i. e., Or what voice. 

3, d. Dust of praise: Compare "The Two Voices," stanza 69: — 

"I know that age to age succeeds, 
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
A dust of systems and of creeds." 



IN MEMORIiM 165 

LXXVI, 1, 2. The first stanza emphasizes the infinite vastness 
of space; the second, the infinite extent of time. 

2, b. The secular abyss to come: The limitless ages of the 
future. Compare XLI, 6, c, and note. 

2, d. Yew: This tree, as was mentioned under II, 1, a, lives to 
an age of several centuries. 

3, a. The matin songs, etc.: The poems of Homer and other 
ancient poets. 

4, b. Fifty Mays: The poet's prophecy that his work would 
be forgotten in half a century has certainly not come true. 

LXXVII. The thought is continued directly from LXXVI. 
1, d. For •shorten' d: For a similar use of this word Bradley 
quotes "Queen Mary," III, v. 22: — 

"How many names in the long sweep of time 
That so foreshortens greatness, may," etc. 

3, b, c. The page that tells A grief, then changed to some- 
thing else: An exact description of "In Memoriam." 

4, d. To utter love (is) more sweet than praise: For reasons, 
see V, VIII, and XXXVIII. 

CYCLE III 
Section Eight 

LXXVIII, 1, a. Again at Christmas: Probably 1834. 

1, d. Calmly fell our Christmas-eve: Compare XXX, 1, d, and 
CV. 1, d. 

2, a. The yule-clog: This was a huge log which in rural Eng- 
land used to be burned on Christmas eve with much ceremony. 

3, c. "The mimic picture's breathing grace": Tableaux, or 
charades. 

4, 5. Time is sweetening the bitterness of Grief, and the poet, 
recurring to the thought of I and II, wonders if this is not a sad 
thing, — a sign of human weakness and fickleness. He then pro- 
ceeds to answer his own question. This poem prepares us for 
the calmer moods that follow. 

LXXIX. The family reunion at Christmas time prompts this 
poem. The first line is a quotation from the final line of IX. The 
poet wishes his brother Charles to understand that it was a dif- 
ference of kind and not of degree which made Arthur more than 
his brothers to him. 

1, d. Hold in fee: Possess absolutely. 



166 IN ME MORI AM 

2, d. It was this brother Charles (See Introduction) with 
whom Alfred published the "Poems of Two Brothers" and with 
whom, later, he entered college. While Charles very much re- 
sembled the poet, Arthur was Alfred's complement. 

LXXX, 3, d. But turns his burthen into gain: The poet 
regards as possible what he formerly regarded as impossible. 
Compare I, 2. 

4, a. His credit: His example. 

LXXXI, 1. The first stanza would perhaps be clearer if punc- 
tuated as a question. 

2, 3. Supply Xo at beginning of line 2, a, in answer to the 
question of 1. The idea of negation is expanded in this line. The 
question of 2, b, then follows; how can he ever cease to regret 
that their love did not have time to ripen fully? He is cast 
down by the thought. But instantly comes the other thought that 
Death in a moment accomplished the work of years, perfecting 
and glorifying his love for Arthur. Notice that here Death's an- 
swer is sweet; another gain in loss. Compare LXVI, 2; and 
LXXIV, 2. 

3, c. Ripeness: It is a fact that under certain conditions a 
sudden frost will accomplish what is here described. 

LXXXII. The horrors of the grave — physical disintegration 
and decay — do not alarm him, for he believes that his friend's 
great spirit is moving on. He only regrets that he cannot hear 
his voice. Here certainly he expresses a large measure of trust 
and comfort. 

2, b. From state to state: Another reference to the theory of 
many stages of existence. Compare XXX, 7, d and Note. 

4, b. Garners: This intransitive use of the word is very 
rare. 

LXXXIII. Filled with a new trust and optimism, the poet 
longs for Spring, the season of rejoicing, feeling that it alone 
can typify his brighter hopes. 

1, b. Neiv-year: Van Dyke points out that in "The Throstle," 
this term is likewise used for Spring. 

3, d. Dropping-icells of fire: The laburnum blossoms are of a 
bright yellow color and hang in an inverted position. 

LXXXI V, 3, c, d. One Of mine own house: Emily Tennyson, 
to whom Arthur Hallam was betrothed. (See Introduction.) 

4, c. Made cypress of h'er orange flower: The cypress, the 
ancient symbol of mourning, contrasted with the orange blossom, 
the more recent symbol of marriage. 



IN MEMORIAM 167 

9, a, b. These lines each constitute a "nominative absolute" 
construction. 

11, a. Arrive: Used transitively as frequently in Elizabethan 
English. Compare Milton (Paradise Lost, ii, 409), "Ere he arrive 
the happy isle." 

11, b, And he that died in Holy Land, etc.: Compare "Cross- 
ing the Bar": — 

"I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crossed the bar." 

12, d. The low beginnings of content: Another indication of 
the change of mood. 

LXXXV. In this poem the spirit of calm and the brightening 
hopes which have appeared in all the previous poems of the cycle 
are expressed more assuredly. The poem has, indeed, been 
called by some the "turning-point" of the whole series. This, 
however, is scarcely correct; for "the low beginnings of content" 
have already been heard. Nevertheless it is certainly true that 
these lines mark a great advance toward "the closing cycle rich 
in good." 

1, c, d. 'Tis better to have loved and lost, etc.: A quotation 
from XXVII, 4; to the time of the writing of this passage refer- 
ence is made in line a. 

2, a. 0, true in word and tried in deed: Compare Epilogue 
1, a. In both passages the reference is to Professor Edmund 
Law Lushington of the University of Glasgow, an old college 
friend of both Hallam and Tennyson. The Epilogue was written 
in honor of his marriage with the poet's youngest sister, Cecilia. 
In the following lines, Lushington is represented as asking Ten- 
nyson three questions which are answered in the succeeding 
stanzas. These are: First, what manner of life is he now lead- 
ing? (2, d); second, has his faith in God been dimmed or in- 
creased? (3, a, b); third, is it possible for him to enjoy another 
friendship? (3, c, d). The first and second are answered in 
stanzas 5-14; the third in stanzas 15-30. 

6, a. The great Intelligences: The angels. 

7, b, c, d. Showed him in the fountain fresh, etc.: That is, 
showed him at once all the knowledge that men shall acquire 
here on earth during all the ages to come. 

9. This stanza is parenthetical. The yet at the beginning of 
10 refers back to 8. Stanza 12 is also parenthetical. 

10, b. Hoio much of act at human hands: Contrasted with 



168 IN MEMORIAM 

wander on a darkened earth (8, c). That is, a life of activity 
rather than of aimless drifting (as suggested in 8) is necessary 
to make a man realize his freedom of will, without a conscious- 
ness of which he would have no courage to face either life or 
death. 

14, a. The imaginative woe, etc.: Of course not imaginary woe, 
but rather that element in his grief which led him, as in the 
Second Cycle, to brood over the great problems of existence, and 
especially to conjure up images of immortal life (compare 13, c, 
and 24-25), thus diverting his mind somewhat from the numbing 
personal gloom of the First Cycle. Compare his remark {Memoir, 
II, 239) that "so long as men retain the least hope in the after- 
life of those whom they loved" no elegy can "equal in pathos the 
desolation of that everlasting farewell" of Catullus to his brother. 
(Compare note on LVII, 4, c.) 

16, a. I woo your love: Note the great change in mood from 
VI, 11, d. 

20, a. My old affection: Arthur himself, who in the following 
lines, and again in 23, seems to speak to him. 

22, c. How is it? Observe that the question discussed tenta- 
tively in LX-LXIV is here confidently answered. 

23, d. That serene result of all: Doubtless the same result 
which the poet in LIV had faintly trusted. 

26, a. Inverted order of phrases — in the natural phrase con- 
struction, the first would follow the second. 

27, a, o. For which they * * * * golden hours: That is, 
what are the elements which in a special way guarantee a per- 
fect friendship? 

30, c. The primrose of the later year: The primrose some- 
times buds and blooms a second time in the autumn. 

LXXXVI. This beautiful single sentence poem was written at 
Barmouth, in Wales, and was one of Tennyson's favorites. He 
frequently quoted it, as giving "preeminently his sense of the 
joyous peace in Nature." (Memoir, I, 313. )The song beginning, 
"0, diviner Air," at the beginning of "The Sisters," has a similar 
motive. 

1, a. Ambrosial air: The gentle west wind, which drives the 
clouds from the sky (1, d — 2, a), and seems to lift the poet's 
heart from the domination of -Doubt and Death to a state of se- 
renity and peace. 

2, b. Dewy-tasselVd: Compare CII, 3, d. 



IN MEMORIAM 169 

2, c. Horned flood: A peculiar expression which Van Dyke 
and Chambers interpret to mean "winding." A more probable 
interpretation is that the epithet is used in reference to the prom- 
ontories of sand which are washed up by the waves. Baedeker's 
Great Britain notes the fact that prior to the building of the rail- 
road embankment and the new Esplanade, the sand drifted very 
badly along the Barmouth beach. 

3, d. The fancy: The poet told Knowles that this meant 
"Imagination — the fancy — no particular fancy." 

LXXXVII-XCV. These poems all have to do with the thought 
suggested in LXXXV, 24, a — that of holding "commerce with the 
dead." In the first three, the communion is in memory; in the 
next six, the possibility of actual spiritual communion is dis- 
cussed. 

LXXXVII, 1, a. The reverend walls: Those of Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, founded by Henry VIII, in 1546, and the larg- 
est college in England. Its roster of famous names is unusually 
long, including Bacon, Newton, Dryden, Cowley, Herbert, Byron, 
Macaulay, and Thackeray. 

4, c. That long walk of limes: Behind the college, across 
the Cam, are the "Trinity Walks," a beautiful park crossed by a 
broad avenue bordered by rows of lofty limes. This avenue is 
one of the familiar "sights" of the University. It leads to New 
Court, where at No. 3, G., Hallam's rooms were. Compare Tenny- 
son's sonnet "To the Rev. W. H. Brookfield," especially 11. 6 and 
7:— 

"How oft with him we paced that walk of limes, 
Him, the last light of those dawn-golden times." 

6, a. o. A oand Of youthful friends: The poet told Mr. 
Knowles that this referred to the "Water Club," so-called be- 
' cause they did not have wine at their meetings. The society is 
more frequently spoken of as the "Apostles." They had regular 
meetings for debates, and literary and political discussions. 
{Memoir, I, 42-43.) See Introduction. 

8, a. The master-oowman: All of Hallam's friends testify to 
his brilliance in discussion and criticism. 

10, d. The oar of Michael Angelo: A prominent ridge of bone 
over the eyes noticeable in portraits of the great artist. Hallam's 
forehead had a similar "bar," as he himself once suggested to the 
poet. (Memoir, I, 38.) See also "Personal Recollections of Ten- 



170 IN MEMORIAM 

nyson," by W. Gordon McCabe, in The Century Magazine for 
March, 1902. 

LXXXVIII. The poet's mingled feelings of joy and grief as ho 
recalls his college days remind him of the glad-sad song of the 
nightingale, which, as a thousand poets testify, seems a wonder- 
ful compound of outwelling joy and plaintive sorrow. This pe- 
culiarity of the nightingale's song is also beautifully described 
toward the close of "The Gardener's Daughter." 

1, b. The budded quicks: The new shoots of the hawthorn 
hedgerows. Compare CXV, 1, b. 

3. In this stanza we have one of the poet's clearest statements 
of his mood at this time, and also of the facts on which he 
founds his doctrine of "heart knowledge." See Introduction. His 
reason bids him grieve and doubt, but his heart rises buoyantly. 

LXXXIX, 1, a. Witch-elms: Also spelled Wych-elm, a species 
native to Great Britain. Again referred to in XCV, 15, 6. 
Counter change: Checker. 

1, o. This flat lawn: The lawn at Somersby, where Hallam 
frequently visited. (See Introduction.) The sycamore (1, d) is 
again referred to in XCV, 14 c. The tree is no longer standing. 
Compare "Ode to Memory," iv, 11-12. 

3, d. Dusty purlieus of the law: The Inner Temple, where at 
the time he was reading law. 

4-13. Could there be a more vivid or more attractive picture of 
vacation days in the country? 

6, d. The Tuscan poets: Dante, Petrarch and Tasso were fa- 
vorite poets of Hallam. In December, 1831, he gave an oration in 
the college chapel on "The Influence of the Italian on English 
Literature," and he taught Emily Tennyson, his sweetheart, Ital- 
ian, so that she might enjoy these Tuscan poets with him. He 
himself wrote excellent Italian sonnets. 

7, c. She brought the harp: The reference is doubtless to 
Mary Tennyson, the oldest sister. (Memoir, I, 77.) 

12, c, d. The crimson-circled star, etc.: Before Venus had gone 
down in the sea where some hours before the sun (her father) 
had disappeared. This is not in accord with classical mythol- 
ogy; but rather refers, as the poet explained to Gatty, to the 
theory of Laplace, according to which the planet is understood to 
be "evolved from the sun.", 

XC. He is indignant qt the idea that if the dead came back 
to life again they would not be welcomed, and declares that who- 



IK MEMORIAM 171 

ever first set forth the idea could never have known what true 
love means. As for himself, he wishes with poignant longing 
that his friend might return. This poem is introductory to the 
next five, all of which deal with the thought of spiritual commun- 
ion. 

5, c. Confusion worse than death: A phrase repeated from 
the "Choric Song" in "The Lotus-Eaters" (Section VI). This 
section of the Choric Song and the latter part of Enoch Arden 
contain in suggestion the idea here set forth in stanzas 2, 4 and 5. 

XCI, 1, d The sea-blue bird of March: The kingfisher, as 
Tennyson explained in a letter to the Duke of Argyle. (Memoir, 
II, 4.) 

2, a. Come, wear the form by which, etc.: The come is to he 
connected in thought with 6, a, of the preceding poem. As Brad- 
ley suggests, the coming in visible form is the "point" of the 
poem. He here calls upon his friend to come in springtime, ap- 
pearing to him as in the springtime of his life; or to come in 
summer (3, 4) in the "after-form" in which his ripened powers 
must now clothe themselves. The bright faith of the final 
stanza is in striking contract with the wavering, wistful mood 
of the second cycle. 

XCII. This and the following poem appear to have been sug- 
gested by the teachings of spiritualism. Frederick Tennyson, the 
poet's oldest brother, was an ardent believer in spiritualism, hav- 
ing faith in table-rapping and other similar manifestations of 
spirit. As late as 1887 the two brothers had a lively discussion in 
regard to these matters. Alfred said: "I grant you that spiritual- 
ism must net be judged by its quacks; but I am convinced that 
God and the ghosts of men would choose something other than 
mere table legs to speak to the heart of man. * * * * There is 
really too much flummery mixed up with it, supposing, as I am 
inclined to believe, there is something in it." (Memoir, II, 342.) 
Spiritualism did not attract much attention in England until 
1848, when great interest in it was aroused; and hence it is not 
unreasonable to suppose that these poems were written late and 
inserted. This, however, is not a necessary deduction; for the 
subject had long interested the poet. See Memoir, I, 497. 

1, a. If any vision should reveal Thy likeness, etc.: Note 
that the poet mentions the two kinds of evidence most credited 
by "mediums" to prove the truth of their claims, viz., knowledge 
of the past (2), and of the future (3), and that he explains both 
subjectively. 



172 IN MEMORIAM 

3, d. Phantom-warning: The they In the next line would 
seem to require a plural here. 

XCIII, 1, a. I shall not see thee: Tennyson (as indicated in 
the note on XCII) rejects all the ordinary spiritualistic beliefs, all 
visible manifestations. He does believe, however, in some sort of 
spiritual communion (2, b-d) . An example of a trance state in 
which he had credence is given in XCV. 

3, a. Sightless: Invisible. 

XCIV, 1, a. Pure at heart: The poet here sets forth his be- 
lief that the pure in heart of whom it was said that they shall 
see God (Matt., v, 8) may also in hours of inner calm enjoy high 
spiritual communion with the dead. Note that this is utterly 
different from the vulgar spiritualistic manifestations through 
"mediums" which are referred to in XCII and XCIII; see also 
note on XCV, 9, d. 

XCV. The Dean of Westminster gives Tennyson's prose ac- 
count of this lawn party. (Memoir, I, 205.) 

2, d. The fluttering urn: The boiling tea-urn. 

3, b. The filmy shapes: Night moths. 

4, d. Their dark arms: Shadows. 

8, a, b. The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell On doubts, etc.: As 
in XCVI. 

9, d. The living soul was flashed on mine: The divine soul 
of the universe. The line originally read, "His living soul." The 
poet told Knowles that his conscience was troubled by the "his," 
but that he had "often had a strange feeling of being wound 
and wrapped in the Great Soul." 

Here and in the stanzas following we have an account of a 
peculiar trance state. For other instances of this same state as 
understood by Tennyson, see "The Ancient Sage" (II, 229-239), 
"The Holy Grail" (last fl), "Sir Galahad" (stanzas 6, 7), "The 
Ring" (11. 32-37). He once wrote that from his boyhood up he 
had frequently had "a kind of waking trance," in which his in- 
dividuality "seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless 
being and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the clear- 
est, the surest of the surest, the weirdest of the weirdest, utterly 
beyond words, where death was an almost laughable impossi- 
bility." He also suggested that in the same way there might be 
more intimate communion with the dead than is generally 
dreamed of. See Memoir, I, 320. See also Professor Tyndall's 
account of the same {Memoir, II, 473-4). Similar trance states 



IN MEMORIAM 173 

are described by many poets and seers ancient and modern, among 
whom are Plato, Plotinus, Dante, Goethe, and Wordsworth. 
Tennyson thought this state of trance might be that to which 
Paul has reference in II Cor. xii, 2-4. 

10, c. That which is: Ultimate reality. 

11, a. Aeonian: Eternal, see XXXV, 3, c, and note. 

11, d. CancelVd, stricken thro' with doubt: Not a gloomy 
doubt, as some have supposed. The correct interpretation is 
given in the poet's prose account (Memoir, I, 320). Here he ex- 
plains that though in the trance he seemed utterly to lose his 
identity, the sense of individuality returned strongly when it 
was over. He says: "When I come back to my normal state of 
'sanity', I am ready to fight for mein liebes Ich, and hold it will 
last for aeons of sBons." 

12, a. Vague words, etc.: In describing this trance state in 
conversation the poet had equal difficulty in expressing himsell 
(see above, and also Memoir, II, 473). 

XCVI. This poem apparently grew out of the thought sug- 
gested in stanza 8 of the preceding. In a way it is the counter- 
part of XXXIII. It may have been addressed to one of the poet's 
sisters who had reproved him for his bold speculations. 

2, a. One indeed I knew: Hallam. One of his early friends 
wrote (Hallam's Remains, Preface, p. xxxi) : "When I first knew 
him he was subject to occasional fits of mental depression, which 
gradually grew fewer and fainter, and had at length, I thought, 
disappeared, or merged in a peaceful Christian faith." Of Hal- 
nam's essays the most remarkable is undoubtedly his Theodiccca 
Novissima, in which he faced courageously the problems of evil 
and of God's justice. The essay shows, throughout, profound 
thought and concludes in a spirit of triumphant faith. 

3, c. Faith in honest doubt: Some Christians apparently do 
not have enough faith in their faith to put their theology to the 
test of scientific examination. Tennyson's idea is that an honest 
search for truth is more truly religious than a blind tra- 
ditionalism, or an ignorant superstition. 

6, b. SinaVs peaks of eld: See Exodus, xix, 16-25, and xxxii, 
1-7. 

XCVII, 1, a. My love: This is not a reference to Arthur, but 
simply a personification of love. If we change the pronouns in 
this stanza to the neuter, we detract from the beauty of the 
poetry but we find the meaning clearer: 



174 IN MEMORIAM 

"My love has talked with rocks and trees; 
It finds," etc. 

1, c. His own vast shadow: An allusion to the well known 
"Spectre of the Brocken," seen in the Harz mountains, an optical 
phenomenon; at sunrise or sunset, one sees one's own shadow, 
enlarged to gigantic extent, cast upon the mountain summit. 

1, d. He sees himself in all he sees: The meaning of this 
stanza is not "highly mystical", as Gatty says, but simply that 
everything the poet sees "speaks to him of something that has 
gone." (Compare C, 1, c, d, and the following.) A concrete ex- 
ample is given in the following stanzas. The relation of the 
simple, home-keeping wife to her intellectual husband suggests 
his own relation to the roaring, free spirit of his friend. The 
thought is somewhat similar (Eo that of LXIV. 

XCVIII. Written in May, 1836, at the time of the marriage of 
his brother Charles to Miss Louisa Sellwood. It was at this 
same wedding that Alfred took the bride's sister Emily into 
church and fell in love with her, as the phrase is, at first sight. 
(Memoir, I, 148.) 

1, c. When I was there with him: A reference to Tennyson's 
and Hallam's tour of the Rhine. (See Introduction and Memoir, 
I. 87.) 

3, c, d. I will not see Vienna: Tennyson kept this vow. 
6, a. Mother town: A translation of metropolis. In "The 
Princess," I, 111, the expression "mother-city" is similarly used. 

Section Nine 

XCIX. Compare LXXII. This poem shows a gain in that it is 
not entirely self-centered. Compare 5, c, with LXVI, 2, c. 

C, 1, d. Some gracious memory of my friend: Very different 
is the mood of this from the deep melancholy of the earlier 
poems, as, for example XLIX. 

2, d. Wold: See note on XI. 

CI. After the death of Dr. Tennyson, the poet's father, in 
1831, the family continued to live in Somersby rectory until 
1837, when they moved to High Beech in Epping Forest, a few 
miles north cf London. This removal suggested this poem and 
the two that follow. 

3, c. The Lesser Wain: The constellation Ursa Minor, com- 
monly called "The Little Dipper." It revolves about the North 

Star (3, d). 



IN MEMORIAM 175 

4, o. The haunts of hern and crake: This and other expres- 
sions here suggest "The Brook." The stream referred to here 
runs through the fields near the rectory. 

6, o. Lops the glades: Cuts out the underbrush and trims the 
trees. 

CI I, 2, c. Two spirits of a diverse love: According to Hallam 
Tennyson, these lines refer to the poet's father and to his friend. 
(Memoir, I, 72.) Gatty, however, states that the poet told him 
that these spirits do not represent persons; but that "the first 
is the love of the native place; the second, the same love en- 
hanced by the memory of the friend." Compare CV, 2, a. 

3, &. Matin song: Doubtless an allusion to the poems pub- 
lished in 1827. 

CIII. This poem is an allegory of the poet's life, past and to 
come. According to an intimate friend of the poet, it is an 
account of an actual dream. The maidens are his poetical pow- 
ers. Hitherto they have sung only to his friend or in honor of 
him. Now they are called to other themes. They are to sail 
with him out upon the everwidening river of life. The poet's 
vision is to expand; his soul is to grow; his powers are to in- 
crease; he is to sing of the greatest things in life (stanza 9). 
Then, finally, on the borders of the sea of Eternity, he is to join 
his friend, whom he sees glorified. Nor shall he at death lose 
his poetical powers; for, as he explained to Gatty, "Everything 
that makes life beautiful here, we may hope may pass on with 
us beyond the grave." Thus the third cycle is appropriately 
brought to a close. Throughout the cycle Hope and Faith have 
been growing stronger, and here at the end we have a happy 
forecast of the still brighter moods that are to come. To note 
the marked growth in faith compare this poem with LXIX. 

CIII, 8, c. AnaTcim: A race of giants. See Deut., ix, 2. 

CYCLE IV 
Section Ten 

CIV. The date is, of course, 1837. 

1, c. A single church: Waltham Abbey, about two and a half 
miles from Beech Hill House, where the Tennysons lived; com- 
pare XXVIII, 2, a. 

3, d. New unhallow'd ground: Compare XCIX, 2, d; and CV, 
2, a. 



176 IN MEMORIAM 

CV, 1, d. Strangely falls our Christmas-eve: Compare XXX, 
1, d; and LXXVIII, 1, d. Indeed, compare the poems throughout. 
3, o. Mask and mime: as in LXXVIII, 3. 

5, b. Wassail mantle warm: Wine flush the cheek. 

6, d. What lightens in the lucid east: The rising stars. (So 
explained by T. himself to Gatty.) 

7, d. The closing cycle rich in good: This line is the keynote 
of what is to come. Compare CVI, 8, d. 

CVI. Compare with this 'The Death of the Old Year." 

1, a. Ring out, etc.: It is of interest to know that on each 

bell in the famous chime at Cornell University is stamped a line 

from this poem beginning, "Ring." 
5, c, d. Another suggestion of the spirit of the closing cycle. 

8, d. The Christ that is to be: Referring, as the poet said, 
to a time "when Christianity without bigotry will triumph, when 
the controversies of creeds shall have vanished." (Memoir, I, 
326.) 

CVII. Apropos of this poem Genung says: "The present an- 
niversary illustrates, as has already been intimated in the Christ- 
mas-tide, how in this cycle, the spirit of hope has overcome. In 
the first cycle the suggestiveness of the blooming season must 
make its way from without into a reluctant mood (XXXVII- 
XXXIX) ; in the second cycle the calmer mood and the promising 
season answer spontaneously to each other (LXXXIII, LXXXVI, 
LXXXVIII); but here in the closing cycle the hopeful mood has 
so overcome the influences of season and weather that even the 
bitter wintry day can have no disturbing effect on the confirmed 
cheer within, — the mind's peace is sufficient to itself, and not 
dependent." 

1, a. The day when he was born: Feb. 1. 

3, a. The brakes: The bushes. 

3, c. Grides and clangs: Note the "tone color", that is, the 
use of words of which the sound suggests the thought. Through- 
out this passage one can hear the noise of the storm. 

3, d. Iron horns: This doubtless refers to the stiffness of the 
ice-covered twigs, and the metallic sounds they make when struck 
together by the wind. 

4, a. The drifts that pass: Rolfe thinks this refers to the 
clouds; but, more likely,' Gatty is correct in his idea that it 
"must allude to drifts of snow, which, falling into waters, im- 
mediately blacken before they dissolve." 



IN MEMORIAM 177 

CVIII-CXIV. These seven poems are all in the mood of the 
birthday poem. The group might well be entitled "Musings on 
Arthur's Birthday." 

CVIII, 1, a. I will not shut me from my kind: Though shut 
up in the house, the poet resolves not to hold himself aloof from 
the world. Compare LXVI, 2. Miss Chapman appropriately ob- 
serves: "More and more convinced is he that, if sorrow is in- 
deed to bear the peaceable fruits of righteousness in him, he must 
nc longer brood over it in solitude. Only among our kind, in 
human sympathy and human fellowship and human striving, can 
sorrow turn to profit." 

4. In this stanza we have another answer to the initial query 
ir I, 2. There, he doubted if in loss there could be any gain to 
match. Here, he is confident that, in spite of all he lost by 
Hallam's death, the sorrow which was its consequence has not 
failed to give him helpful teachings; and of these teachings the 
greatest is the value of human sympathy. 

CIX. In this and the following poems, in continuance of this 
same train of thought, the poet reflects upon what he might have 
learned from Hallam, if Hallam had lived — what indeed he may 
still learn from the recollection of Hallam's character and life. 
He speaks of his friend as original (1, a, b), yet critical (1, c, d), 
logical (2, a, b), yet enthusiastic (2, c, d) ; loving good (3, a), 
but not ascetic (3, b, c, d) ; loving freedom (4, a, b), but opposed 
to license (4, c, d) ; uniting the strength of a man with the charm 
of a woman (5). 

1, b. Household fountains: Various interpretations have been 
suggested for this expression. Of these, doubtless the best is 
Bradley's rendering of the passage, "springing from within, 
original." 

4, d. The blind hysterics of the Celt: Tennyson had no ad- 
miration for the revolutionary spirit in France. Like Burke, he 
believed in the reign of law. Compare CXXVII, 2, c, and the Epi- 
logue to "The Princess," 11. 49-71. 

CX, 1, b. Rathe: Early. Compare Milton, "the rathe prim- 
rose" ("Lycidas," 142). This form of the word is almost obso- 
lete, but its comparative rather is common. 

2, c. The serpent: The liar or sneak. 

2, d. Double tongue: Compare Vergil's expression, "Tyrios 
bilingues" (double-tongued Tyrians). 
CXI, 1, c. Golden ball: A golden ball surmounted by a cross, 



178 IN MEMORIAM 

technically called the "orb", belongs with the crown and the 
sceptre among the insignia of royalty. 

5, b. Villain fancy: Villain here is equivalent to churlish. 
(Compare 1, a, and 2, a.) Consult the dictionary for the original 
meaning and history of these words. 

CXII. A somewhat obscure poem, the obscurity arising largely 
from the condensation of the thought. The difficulty has been 
increased by some commentators who make "glorious insufficien- 
cies" (1, c) refer to Hallam. It rather refers to other men of 
genius who have, along with their great qualities, obvious 
"insufficiencies." The thought of the first three stanzas may be 
thus prosaically paraphrased: A wise friend chides me because 
I am stirred to enthusiasm neither by men who in spite of their 
defects are unquestionably men of genius nor by lesser men who 
seem perfect in their small way. The reason is that both fall so 
far short of Arthur, who, free from all eccentricity, combined 
genius with symmetry and perfection. Truly his was a unique 
personality. 

4. The grammatical dependence here is not perfectly clear. If 
the words and seeing — easily implied from ivatching in 3, d — be 
supplied to connect the stanzas, the difficulty will be removed. 
The figure in this last stanza was evidently suggested by the 
process of world-making. Such was the power of Arthur's mind; 
it never failed to bring order out of chaos. 

CXIII, 1. It would seem that this stanza should have been 
closed either with the mark of interrogation or with that of 
exclamation. 

1, a. Quoted from CVIII, 4, c. 

2, d. I doubt not what thou wouldst have been: Gladstone in 
his Gleanings of Past Years (II, 136) wrote in a similar strain. 
He says, in speaking of Hallam: "He is well known to have been 
one who, if the term of his days had been prolonged, would have 
built his own enduring monument, and would have bequeathed to 
his country a name in all likelihood greater than that of his very 
distinguished father. It would be easy to show what in the varied 
forms of human excellence, he might, had life been granted him, 
have accomplished; much more difficult to point the finger and to 
say, 'This he never could have done.' " (Compare Memoir, I, 299; 
also an article by Gladstone in The Youth's Companion, for Jan. 6, 
1898.) 

3, d. A pillar steadfast in the storm: The best comment on 



IN MEMORIAM 179 

this and the following lines is made by Gladstone. He says (see 
article in The Youth's Companion cited above) : "On the whole 
it [the nineteenth century] has had for its prevailing note the 
abandonment and removal of restraints. . . . The motto of the 
race has been, 'Unhand me.' ... We have been set free from 
unlawful and (sometimes) from lawful, from arbitrary and 
(sometimes) from salutary control. ... It is evident that 
the great and sudden augmentation of liberty in a thousand forms 
places under an aggravated strain the balance which governs hu- 
manity both in thought and conduct. And upon my heightened 
retrospect, I must advisedly declare that I have never in the actual 
experience of life, known a man who seemed to me to possess all 
the numerous and varied qualifications required to meet this 
growing demand in anything like the measure in which Arthur 
Hallam exhibited these budding, nay, already flowering, gifts." 

CXIV. The thought of Hallam's rare qualities suggests the 
vital difference between Wisdom and mere Knowledge. 

1, d. Her pillars: The Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) were 
regarded by the ancients as marking the world's limit. 

3, o. She cannot fight the fear of death: Compare LV and 
LVI. 

3, d. Some wild Pallas from the drain: According to Greek 
myth, Pallas (Minerva) sprang full-armed from the brain of Zeus. 

5, d. Wisdom: For the distinction between knowledge and 
wisdom, compare Prologue, 6 and 7; also "Locksley Hall" (1. 141), 
"Love and Duty" (11. 23-25), "The Ancient Sage" (1. 37 and fol- 
lowing). Compare, too, Cowper's famous passage ("The Task," 
VI, 88-97) beginning— 

"Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, 
Have oft times no connection." 
and closing — 

"Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

7, d. Reverence: Compare Prologue, 7. 

CXV. Compare with other spring poems as XXXVIII and 
XCI. 

1, o. Burgeons: Buds or sprouts. Maze of quick: Haw- 
thorn clumps and hedgerows. Compare LXXXVIII, 1, d, and 
note. 

1, c. Squares: Fields. 



180 IN MEMOKIAM 

1, d. Ashen roots: The roots of ash trees. 

2, d. The lark becomes a sightless song: Compare Shelley, 
"To a Skylark" (stanza 4 and following); Wordsworth, "To a 
Skylark," etc. 

CXVI. Closely connected with preceding. 

1, d. The crescent prime: Spring, the growing season. Com- 
pare XLIII, 4, c, where prime means dawn. 

CXVII. The forward look of the preceding suggests the ques- 
tion as to the value of the present. This is the theme of this 
poem and the following. 

3, Note the four ways of measuring time alluded to here. 
CXVIII. Compare LV, LVI. In these poems the poet turned to 

nature, but found no suggestions of comfort. Now in a happier 
mood and with a broader vision he contemplates all the work of 
Time, and sees in its eternal process, ever moving on to higher 
forms and an ampler life, a type of the progress of the human 
spirit. 

2, c. They: Refers to Laplace, and other advocates of the 
nebular hypothesis. Compare with this passage, "The Princess," 
II, 101 and following. 

3, c. Cyclic storms: Probably cycle-long storms. 

4, b. The herald of a higher race: Compare CIII, 9, c; also 
Epiloque, 32, d, and following. Is this a race different from 
man, or man in a perfected state? Probably the latter. Com- 
pare "The Dawn" (stanza v). 

4, d. If so he type, etc.: If so be that he exemplify, etc. 

5, b. Or, crown' 'd with attributes of woe, etc.: The poet sug- 
gests two methods of human development: first, a natural de- 
velopment governed by the general laws of life; second, a special 
development, the product of a free will working out its own 
salvation, and changing the "attributes of woe" into crowns of 
glory. The first is described in 4; the second begins with 5, 6. 

7, b. The reeling Faun: The fauns were mythical creatures, 
half divine, half animal. Here, the reference is to the grosser 
nature of man. 

7, c. Move upward, working out the beast: Tennyson later 
accepted the evolutionary idea that man's body is evolved from 
the lower orders of life, and frequently refers to it in his later 
poems. Compare, among many passages, "The Ancient Sage" 
(1. 276), "By an Evolutionist," "The Making of Man." But he 
wrote this passage several years before the publication of Dar- 



IN MEMORIAM 181 

will's Origin of Species; and it is by no means certain that the 
poet by "beast" here meant anything more than the gross sen- 
sual passions. 

CXIX. Compare VII. Note the utter change in mood, and how 
the background of each corresponds to its general tone. 

1, d. The meadow in the street: Loads of new hay coming in 
for the early market. 

CXX. Closely connected with CXVIII, CXIX being parenthet- 
ical. 

1, c. Magnetic mockeries: Automatic machines working by 
electricity. (Compare CXXV, 4, c.) 

1, d. Like Paul ivith beasts: See I. Cor., xv, 32. 

2, a. Not only cunning casts in clay: Connect grammatically 
with 1, b. "I think we are not wholly brain . . . not only 
cunning casts," etc. 

2, d. I would not stay: The poet was always an ardent op- 
ponent of every form of materialism. He once said: "Take 
away the sense of individual responsibility and men sink into 
pessimism and madness." At the end of his poem "Despair," he 
wrote: "In my boyhood I came across the Calvinist creed, and 
assuredly however unfathomable the mystery, if one cannot be- 
lieve in the freedom of the human will as of the Divine, life is 
hardly worth having." {Memoir, I, 317.) Note also "Vastness," 
XVI, and following. 

3, a. Let him, the wiser man, etc.: Ironical, spoken against ma- 
terialism; but, as the poet adds, "not against evolution." (Gatty.) 

CXXI. Stopford Brooke calls this poem "the most finished 
piece of conscious art in In Memoriam." 

1, a. Hesper: The Greek name for the planet Venus in the 
character of the evening star. 

2, Evening scenes. The last line refers to sleep. 

3, a. Phosphor: The "light-bearer." The Greek name for 
Venus in the character of the morning star. Compare IX, 3, b. 

3, c. The wakeful bird: The cock. 

5, c. My present and my past: Some of the commentators 
have misunderstood this stanza, though the meaning seems evi- 
dent. The poet likens himself to the star; in his former moods 
of grief, he was like Hesper; in his present mood of faith, he is 
like Phosphor. 

CXXII, 1, a and following. Then, While I rose up against my 



182 IN MEMOKIAM 

doom, etc.: The reference is, apparently, to the trance described 
in XCV. Doom: Grief. 

CXXIII, 1, o. earth, what changes hast thou seen: For a 
similar thought see "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," 
IX, 28-34. Compare also Shakespeare, Sonnet lxiv. 

3, c, d. Tho' my lips may breathe adieu, etc.: Compare LVII, 
3 and 4; noting the difference in mood. 

CXXIV, 1, c, d. He, They, One, All, etc.: These words sug- 
gest the different conceptions under which men in various times 
and places have worshipped the Divine. Compare "Akbar's 
Dream": 

"That Infinite 
Within us, as without, that All-in-all, 
And over all, the never-changing One 
And ever-changing Many." 

Hallam Tennyson writes of his father: "He dreaded the dog- 
matism of sects and rash definitions of God. 'I dare hardly name 
His name', he would P and accordingly he named Him in 'The 
Ancient Sage,' the 'Nameless.'" (Memoir, I, 311.) 

2, a. I found Him not, etc.: The poet does not mean that these 
things are not manifestations of God (compare "Flower in the 
Crannied Wall") ; but that the deepest revelation of the Divine 
comes not through reason or by science. Compare LIV-LVI, and 
notes, CXIV; also "The Ancient Sage," 31-77. "In the summer of 
1892 he exclaimed: 'Yet God is love, transcendent, all-pervading! 
We do not get this faith from Nature or the world.' " {Memoir, 
I, 314.) 

4, d. "I have felt": A vital element in the question, which 
science has been slow to acknowledge, but to which the poet 
attached much weight. He once wrote to a stranger who ques- 
tioned him about the future life: "I can only say that I sym- 
pathize with your grief, and if faith means anything at all it is 
trusting to those instincts, or feelings, or whatever they may be 
called, which assure us of some life after this." (Memoir, I, 495.) 

5, The reference here is to LIV, 5. 

6, c. Out of darkness came the hands: Compare LV, 4, 5. 
Professor Sidgwick made some very suggestive comments on this 
poem in a letter to the present Lord Tennyson. See Memoir, I, 
302-3. 

CXXV, 1, b. Some bitter notes my harp would give: Bradley 
is doubtless correct when he says that this is "a harsh contraction 



IN MEMOEIAM 183 

for 'In spite of the bitter notes which my harp would sometimes 
give'." 

1, d. A contradiction on the tongue: As in the "lying lips" 
of III and XXXIX. 

4, c. Electric force: Vital force. Compare "magnetic," CXX, 
1, c. 

CXXVI. "Love is his King. He waits in Love's court on earth, 
and his friend is elsewhere; but from end to end of Love's King- 
dom, which is the universe, pass messages and assurances that all 
is well." — Bradley. 

3, d. All is well: An allusion to the old custom of the senti- 
nel's crying the hours at night, adding "All's well." 

CXXVII, 1, a. All is well: Caught up from the last line of 
the preceding. 

1, d. A deeper voice: The still small voice of the heart. 
Compare CXXIV, 4, and I Kings, xix, 11, 12. 

2, a. Proclaiming: Supply after this word the conjunction 
that. 

2, c. The red fool-fury of the Seine: Compare CIX, 4, d, and 
note. Some have thought that the poet had in mind here the 
revolution of 1848; but he told Gatty that it was written prior to 
1848. The reference therefore is doubtless to the horrors of the 
French Revolution, 1789-95. The meaning is that, even if there 
should be three more revolutions each as bad as the Reign of 
Terror, he would still have faith in God and Good. 

3, 4. The thought of these condensed and highly figurative 
stanzas seems to be that in the process of social evolution, two 
existing social elements, the king and the beggar, are destined 
to disappear. The change will not, however, be brought about 
without bloodshed, though already the framework that supports 
the old order is toppling and melting like ice in spring time. 

CXXVIII, 1, c. The lesser faith: This faith is "lesser" than 
"love" because it has to do only with "the course of human 
things" (d) while by "love" is meant the greater faith that has to 
do with Spiritual Realities and Eternal Verities. The latter is the 
theme of CXXVI; the former of CXXVII. The object of this poem 
is to assert kinship between the two, and to carry farther the 
thought of CXXVII. Doubtless the poet had in mind I Cor., xiii, 8 
and 13. In regard to the ideas expressed in this poem Davidson 
pertinently says: "That higher insight which we call faith, and 
upon which we depend for the most vital truths, is feeble when 



184 IN MEMCRIAM 

dissociated from love. It is through love that a man rises to 
faith, and through faith that he rises to God, 'from whom is every 
good and perfect gift.' " 

2-5. The thought of these stanzas is that humanity must 
doubtless yet pass through many changes and revolutions, but 
that more than mere change is to be the result. In spite of 
eddies and counter currents, the great movement is onward. 
Compare "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." 

6, It. I see in part: Compare I Cor., xiii, 12. 

6, d. Toil cooperant to an end: This is a clear statement of 
the poet's philosophy. His teleology is a far vaster conception 
than the old teleology of The Bridgewater Treatise. Compare 
"The Two Voices," stanza 99, and Epilogue, 36, c, d. 

CXXIX. A beautiful poem of idealized love in which the poet 
associates his friend, now glorified, with all that is highest and 
best. Sorrow seems utterly lost in the certain joy of assured 
reunion. 

3, c, d. I dream a dream of good, etc.: A forecast of the next 
poem. 

CXXX. The thought of the closing line of the preceding is hero 
expanded. Compare "Adonais," xlii, xliii; but note that Tennyson 
avoids the vague pantheism of Shelley. He believes in the con- 
tinuance of his friend's personal existence in addition to his asso- 
ciation with all forms of loveliness. This idea is emphasized in 
CXXXI. 

3, b. My love is vaster passion now: Compare Epilogue, 3, 5; 
and Prologue, 10. The initial query in I, 2, is now finally and 
fully answered. Again and again has the poet noted minor in- 
stances of gain in loss. Compare LXVI, 2, a-c; LXXIV, 2; 
LXXXI, 3; CV1II, 4. Here, at last, we come to the final great 
and all-pervading fact that the experience has made his love a 
"vaster passion." 

CXXXI, 1, a. living will that shalt endure: Tennyson ex- 
plained this {Memoir, I, 319) as "that which we know as Free- 
will, the higher and enduring part of man." He declared that 
between this and the Supreme and Eternal Will there is an 
intimate connection. (Compare 2, d.) The poet often, as here, 
insisted on the eternal reality of this spiritual element in man 
compared with the ephemeral character of physical phenomena, 
("all that seems," b.) He once said: "There are moments 
when the flesh is nothing to me, when I feel and know the flesh 



IN MEMORIAM 185 

to be the vision, God and the spiritual the only real and true. 
Depend upon it, the Spiritual is the real. . . . You may tell 
me that my hand and my foot are only imaginary symbols of my 
existence; I could believe you. But you never, never can con- 
vince me that the I is not an eternal Reality, and the Spiritual 
is not the true and real part of me." (Memoir, II, 90.) Com- 
pare the phrase "Heaven-descended Will" in the poem "Will," ii, 
2; also note on CXX, 2, d. 

1, c. The spiritual rock: Compare I Cor., x, 4. "Christ is the 
rock from which springs the fountain of the will." (Van Dyke.) 

2, d. One that with us works: See I Cor., iii, 9. — 

3, o. Truths that never can be proved: Compare "The An- 
cient Sage," 56-67. 

In regard to this closing poem Robinson says: "In this last 
canto there is laid bare before us the innermost working of the 
mind of the poet, and we are permitted to trace the steps by 
which he has been enabled to rise to 'higher things.' It has 
been from his increasing sense of the reality of the spiritual in 
human nature that he has gained his strong conviction of the 
existence and character of God; and it has been upon this two- 
fold assurance that he has built his hopes of immortality and the 
ultimate fulfillment of all noblest ideals. 

"The argument is not so much that of logic as of life. It 
follows that if the hopes are to remain it can only be because 
the experience upon which they are based is continually being 
renewed. Hence the solemn earnestness of his wish for him- 
self and for us." 

Epilogue. This marriage song was written in honor of the 
marriage of the poet's sister Cecilia to Professor Edmund L. 
Lushington, Oct. 10, 1842. 

1, a. true and tried: Compare LXXXV, 2, a. 

2, o, c. Since first he told me that he loved, etc.: This, of 
course, refers to Haliam's engagement to Emily Tennyson. 

6. With this stanza compare Prologue, 11. 

12, a. I that danced her on my knee: Alfred was eight years 
older than his sister Cecilia. (Compare Memoir, I, 5.) 

13, o. Her feet, my darling, on the dead: That is, on the 
slabs covering the graves of those buried near the altar. Com- 
pare X, 4, c, and note. 

13, c. Their pensive tablets: The mural monuments. 
27, d. A rising fire: Explained in the next line. 



180 IN MEMORIAM 

31, a. Sounds: Construe, of course, not as a noun, but as a 
verb coordinate with rest. The phrase by which belongs to boti. 

31, c. A soul shall draw from out the vast: Compare "De 
Profundus," also "Crossing the Bar," 2, c. 

32, d. The crowning race: Compare CXVIII, 4, b. 

Some have criticised the poet for closing his elegy with this 
happy marriage song, but the poet replied that he meant it to be 
"a kind of Divina Commedia, ending with happiness." (Memoir, 
1, 304). Genung puts the idea very happily: "The poem that 
began with death, over which in its long course it has found love 
triumphant, now ends with marriage, that highest earthly illus- 
tration of crowned and completed love." Besides being in itself 
a beautiful epithalamium, the poem sums up in concrete and 
vivid way the results of the poet's long struggle with grief and 
doubt. The following points may be noted: 

1. Regret has ceased, but love is greater than before. (3-5.) 

2. The poet feels himself a stronger and a wiser man than in 
the days gone by. (5-6.) 

3. His heart is at peace and life seems full of joy. (17-21.) 

4. He thinks of his friend as still existent, and perhaps pres- 
ent with him. (22, and 35, d.) 

5. He looks forward to the future with a happy confidence in 
the development of the race and the ultimate triumph of the 
highest and the best. (31-34.) 

6. For all these thoughts he finds assurance in the character 
of his glorified friend whose life was a pledge of the final union 
of the race with God. (35-36.) 



IN MEMOKIAM 187 

INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Again at Christmas did we weave, LXXVIII. 

A happy lover who has come, VIII. 

And all is well, tho' faith and form, CXXVII. 

And was the day of my delight, XXIV. 

As sometimes in a dead man's face, LXXIV. 

Be near me when my light is low, L. 
By night we linger'd on the lawn, XCV. 

Calm is the morn without a sound, XL 
Contemplate all this work of time, CXVIII. 
Could I have said while he was here, LXXXI. 
Could we forget the widow'd hour, XL. 

Dark house, by which once more I stand, VII. 
Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, CXXIX. 
Dip down upon the northern shore, LXXXIII. 
Doors, where my heart was used to beat, CXIlv. 
Dost thou look back on what hath been, LXIV. 
Do we indeed desire the dead, LI. 

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore, IX. 
From art, from nature, from the schools, XLIX, 

Heart-affluence in discursive talk, CIX. 

He past; a soul of nobler tone, LX. 

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, XXXII. 

He tasted love with half his mind, XC. 

High wisdom holds my wisdom less, CXII. 

How fares it with the happy dead, XLIV. 

How many a father have I seen, LIII. 

How pure at heart and sound in head, XCIV. 

I cannot love thee as I ought, LII. 

I cannot see the features right, LXX. 

I climb the hill: from end to end, C. 

I dream'd there would be Spring no more, LXIX. 

I envy not in any moods, XXVII. 

If any vision should reveal, XCII. 



188 IE" MEMOKIAM 

If any vague desire should rise, LXXX. 

If, in thy second state sublime, LXI. 

If one should bring me this report, XIV. 

If Sleep and Death be truly one, XLIII. 

If these brief lays, of sorrow born, XLVIII. 

I hear the noise about thy keel, X. 

I held it truth, with him who sings, I. 

I know that this was Life, — the track, XXV. 

I leave thy praises unexpress'd, LXXV. 

I past beside the reverend walls, LXXXVII. 

In those sad words I took farewell, LVIII. 

I shall not see thee. Dare I say, XCIII. 

I sing to him that rests below, XXL 

I sometimes hold it half a sin, V. 

I trust I have not wasted breath, CXX. 

I vex my heart with fancies dim, XLII. 

I wage not any feud with Death, LXXXIL 

I will not shut me from my kind, CVIII. 

Is it, then, regret for buried time, CXVI. 

It is the day when he was born, CVII. 

Lo, as a dove when up she springs, XII. 
Love is and was my Lord and King, CXXVI. 

"More than my brothers are to me," LXXIX. 
My love has talk'd with rocks and trees, XCVII. 
My own dim life should teach me this, XXXIV. 

Now fades the last long streak of snow, CXV. 
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, XXIII. 

O days and hours, your work is this, CXVII. 
Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, CXXII. 
Oh, yet we trust that somehow good, LIV. 
Old warder of these buried bones, XXXIX. 
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones, II. 
O living will that shalt endure, CXXXI. 
One writes that "Other friends remain", VI. 
On that last night before we went, CIII. 
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, III. 
O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me, LIX. 



IN MEMOKIAM 189 



O thou that after toil and storm, XXXIII. 
true and tried, so well and long, Epilogue. 

Peace; come away: the song of woe, LVII. 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, CVI. 
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, LXXII. 
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, XCIX. 

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun, CXXI. 
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance, LXXI. 
"So careful of the type?" — but no, LVI. 
So many worlds, so much to do, LXXIII. 
Still onward winds the dreary way, XXVI. 
Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Prologue. 
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, LXXXVI. 
Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt, LXV. 

Take wings of fancy, and ascend, LXXVI. 

Tears of the widower, when he sees, XIII. 

That each, who seems a separate whole, XLVIT. 

That which we dare invoke to bless, CXXIV. 

The baby new to earth and sky, XLV. 

The churl in spirit, up or down, CXI. 

The Danube to the Severn gave, XIX. 

The lesser griefs that may be said, XX. 

The love that rose on stronger wings, CXXVIII. 

The path by which we twain did go, XXII. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ, XXVIII. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ, CIV. 

The wish, that of the living whole, LV. 

There rolls the deep where grew the tree, CXXIII. 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, LXXXV. 

Tho' if an eye that's downward cast, LXII. 

Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, XXXVI. 

Thou comest, much wept for; such a breeze, XVII. 

Thy converse drew us with delight, CX. 

Thy spirit ere our fatal loss, XLI. 

Thy voice is on the rolling air, CXXX. 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, CXIII. 

'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand, XVIII. 



190 IN MEMOKIAM 

To-night the winds begin to rise, XV. 
To-night ungather'd let us leave, CV. 
To Sleep I give my powers away, IV. 

Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, CI. 
Urania speaks with darken'd brow, XXXVII. 

We leave the well-beloved place, CII. 
We ranging down this lower track, XLVI. 
What hope is here for modern rhyme, LXXVII. 
What words are these have fall'n from me, XVI. 
Whatever I have said or sung, CXXV. 
When I contemplate all alone, LXXXIV. 
When in the down I sink my head, LXVIII. 
When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, XXXI. 
When on my bed the moonlight falls, LXVII. 
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, XCI. 
Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail, CXIV. 
Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, LXXXVIII. 
Witch-elms, that counterchange the floor, LXXXIX. 
With such compelling cause to grieve, XXIX. 
With trembling fingers did we weave, XXX. 
With weary steps I loiter on, XXXVIII. 

Yet if some voice that man could trust, XXXV. 
Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven, LXIII. 
You leave us: you will see the Rhine, XCVIll. 
You say, but with no touch of scorn, XCVI. 
You thought my neart too far diseased, LXVI. 



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